2021 Birmingham, Alabama, mayoral election
The 2021 Birmingham mayoral election was held on August 24, 2021, to elect the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama. Incumbent Democratic mayor Randall Woodfin was re-elected to a second term. Background. Woodfin was first elected in 2017, defeating incumbent mayor William A. Bell in a runoff. He was a keynote speaker at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. During his first term, he faced criticism for furloughing some city employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, committing $3 million per year to the Protective Stadium, creating a city-funded scholarship program, and replacing Birmingham's police chief , though he has defended all the aforementioned decisions. In his reelection campaign, Woodfin primarily touted his accomplishments in renovating several dilapidated areas of the city and reforming the city's police department. A primary issue in the campaign was the results of the 2020 United States census, which showed that Huntsville had surpassed Birmingham as Alabama's most populous city. Woodfin believed that Birmingham's population loss was due to a brain drain, and pointed out that the aforementioned scholarship program could help keep high school graduates in the city.