Justin Holcomb was five-years-old when Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville), the incumbent Holcomb’s now challenging in the March 5 Republican primary, was first elected to the Alabama District 4 Congressional seat he still occupies.
“He’s been in office almost as long as I’ve been on Earth, which I don’t think is healthy for the people in his district, or for this country,” Holcomb told The Times during his most recent visit to Cullman on Saturday. “That’s not the way America was intended to work.”
Holcomb and his campaign team sat in on Saturday’s monthly breakfast meeting of the Cullman County Republican Party as guests, listening in — along with the sizable crowd — as Aderholt took the stage as the morning’s featured speaker. From Florence to Northport and all points in between, he’s been hitting the road a lot to connect with District 4 voters ahead of the upcoming primary, including repeated stops in Cullman County.
Holcomb’s primary candidacy mounts a rare GOP challenge to Aderholt’s tight hold on the District 4 seat, which with each successive two-year turnover cycle in the U.S. House of Representatives has fielded increasingly diminishing opposition — both during primary season and in the General Election. Aderholt has served as the district’s House representative for more than a quarter century, first assuming office in 1997 as voters’ choice to replace the late Tom Bevill — a Democrat who himself remained in Congress for three decades.
That kind of longevity in a political career, said Holcomb, isn’t beneficial to constituents, and part of his platform includes a pledge to voters not to hold his seat for more than two terms. Enthusiastically aligned with President Donald Trump and his broad conservative support base, Holcomb anchors his candidacy well to the right of Aderholt, a Republican whose recent Congressional voting record and accessibility to District 4 voters he sharply criticizes.
“I’m running for three reasons: to restore respect for Alabama in Congress, to bring back more money to the people of District 4, and to stand in front of Donald Trump,” he said. “Our current Congressman brought back $1.6 million to our district last year, which is a shame. If I’m in office, you won’t be talking about ‘millions’ — you’ll be talking about hundreds of millions. I’ll also do a much better job fighting against any liberal opposition than my opponent has done.”
A former content contributor to conservative website Townhall, Holcomb — a Trussville native who currently resides in Oneonta — said he’s never sought an elected position before, but public service isn’t meant to be a career path, he said, noting many longtime elected leaders’ tendency to take their constituents’ good will — as well as their vote — for granted.
“It isn’t the people’s fault that my opponent has been in office for so long,” he explained. “[Aderholt] has only been primaried twice. Now he’s going for his 15th term in office. When you’ve only been primaried twice in that span of time, it’s not healthy for the public. and it’s easy to win when no one’s running against you.”