Ivey served as the 38th Alabama State Treasurer from 2003 to 2011. She then became the 30th Lieutenant Governor of Alabama, serving from January 2011 until Robert J. Bentley's resignation on April 10, 2017 in the aftermath of a sex scandal. She beat Walter Maddox in the 2018 Alabama gubernatorial election to complete her full term. Ivey is the first woman to be Alabama's governor since Lurleen Wallace, who succeeded her husband George Wallace in 1967. 