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Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s interest in Alabama’s gubernatorial campaign has been anything but subtle. The coach-turned-politician has spent recent months telling people on Capitol Hill that he intended to forgo re-election and run for governor, and last week, the Club for Growth’s political action committee took the unusual step of endorsing his candidacy — before it was even announced.
The question was when, not whether, the GOP senator would kick off his second statewide bid for elected office. That question now has an answer.
During a Tuesday afternoon appearance on Fox News, the Republican made it official, announcing that he's ending his congressional career after just one term and running for governor in his adopted home state of Alabama.
The on-air comments coincided with the launch of his new campaign website, which leans on the senator's alignment with Donald Trump.
Tuberville’s chances of success are excellent. While it was widely assumed that Will Ainsworth, Alabama’s incumbent lieutenant governor, would succeed term-limited Gov. Kay Ivey, Ainsworth saw the writing on the wall, realized he’d face an uphill fight against Tuberville and bowed out of consideration last week.
The senator, in other words, is likely to run unopposed in next year’s Republican gubernatorial primary in one of the nation’s reddest states. If anyone's is prepared to gamble on the 2026 contest, Tuberville’s odds look pretty good.
That said, to the extent that merit dictates election outcomes, the senator doesn’t have much of a record to run on.
Tuberville’s 2020 candidacy was an unfortunate indicator of what to expect from his political career. As regular readers may recall, the Alabama Republican settled on a specific kind of strategy that American voters don’t generally see from those seeking statewide office: He said very little, did very little and expected to win while maintaining a relatively low public profile.
During the GOP primaries, for example, Tuberville refused to debate former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. During the general election, he also refused to debate incumbent Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. After struggling to discuss the basics of the Voting Rights Act, the retired coach seemed to retreat even further from microphones.
With just a few weeks remaining before Election Day 2020, the Alabama Media Group’s Kyle Whitmire noted, “Tuberville is in hiding.” The columnist added, “[I]f a campaign won’t let its candidate speak openly because he can’t do so without saying dumb things that hurt his chances of winning the election, what the heck is going to happen when he’s in the United States Senate?”
As it turns out, we didn't have to wait too long for the answer to come into focus: Tuberville’s tenure in the Senate can charitably be described as an embarrassment.
The Republican is perhaps best known for becoming the first and only senator in American history to impose a 10-month blockade against confirming U.S. military officials, as part of an anti-abortion fight that he didn’t seem to fully understand.
The gambit left Tuberville’s reputation on Capitol Hill in tatters. Indeed, in the midst of his blockade, several Senate Republicans publicly accused him of, among other things, being dishonest, damaging the military during international crises, assisting U.S. adversaries abroad and relying on tactics that were “ridiculous” and “dumb.”
But while this failed effort was a stain on Tuberville’s career, it was not his only fiasco. Remember when he accused Democrats of partnering with “a Satanic cult” to destroy America’s youth? How about the time he suggested to a group of veterans that he was “more military” than they were — despite the inconvenient fact that he never actually served in the armed forces? Or maybe the time he said it’s not up to senators to “determine” whether Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees are qualified?
Over the course of four years and four months, there are countless related incidents. Upon arriving in Congress in January 2021, the first votes Tuberville cast were against certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Two months later, the Alabama Republican said the three branches of the federal government were the House, the Senate and the White House — he apparently forgot about the judiciary — and talked up government-imposed religious lessons, in defiance of the First Amendment and U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
In the months and years that followed, Tuberville became known for election denialism, provocative rhetoric about race, disparaging the U.S. military, struggling with policy details and needlessly giving Russia’s Vladimir Putin the benefit of the doubt. All the while, he’s faced residency questions he apparently doesn’t want to answer — as recently as 2018, the ostensible Alabaman was casting votes in Florida — while engaging in more stock trading than 98% of other members of Congress.
If Tuberville makes it to the governor’s office next year, it’ll be a classic example of a politician failing up.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.