Helena, AL is an active and vibrant city located in Shelby County, Alabama. The City of Helena prides itself on being a community with strong civic involvement and leadership. Politically, Helena is a reliably Democratic stronghold in the state. In recent years, the Democratic Party has had an increasing presence in both the local and state level elections. For example, during the 2020 general election in Shelby County, Democrats achieved a landslide victory as they won all but one of the contested offices including Sheriff, Revenue Commissioner and Circuit Clerk. At the state level, Democrats have held a majority of elected offices since 2014 with up to three seats currently held by party members. With such a strong commitment to Democratic values from its citizens, many influential political figures have made their home in Helena over the years striving for progress both inside and outside of government.
The political climate in Helena, AL is strongly conservative.
Shelby County, AL is very conservative. In Shelby County, AL 28.9% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 69.3% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.7% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Shelby county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 69.3% to 28.9%.
Shelby county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Helena, AL is strongly conservative.
Shelby County, Alabama is very conservative.
Birmingham-Hoover Metro Area is moderately conservative.
Alabama is strongly conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Helena, Alabama: R R R R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Helena, AL
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 1,787 contributions totaling $105,208 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $59 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 1,259 contributions totaling $256,577 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $204 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)