Democratic former Sen. Doug Jones is running for governor of Alabama, setting up a likely rematch with his Senate successor, Republican Tommy Tuberville, in the open-seat race.
“I have finally confirmed the worst-kept secret in the state of Alabama,” Jones said in a video posted on social media after filing paperwork for his gubernatorial run. “Folks in Alabama deserve a governor who is going to fight for them.”
Jones, the last Democrat to win a statewide race in the Yellowhammer state, said his official campaign kickoff would take place next month after Thanksgiving.
Jones shocked the political world in 2017 when he scored an upset win over scandal-plagued Republican Roy Moore in a Senate special election. But he was unseated three years later, losing to Tuberville by 20 points as the deep-red state returned to its partisan leanings.
Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach, announced in May that he would forgo a second Senate term and instead run to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Kay Ivey. A spokeswoman for Tuberville’s gubernatorial campaign dismissed Jones’ entry into the race, saying, “This race is already over.”
“Last time Doug Jones ran against Coach Tuberville, it didn’t go well for Doug,” Mallory Blount Jaspers said on social media. “Coach has spent the past six months building coalitions across the state, securing endorsements from every key player in Alabama politics, and shattering fundraising records.”
Before his election to the Senate, Jones, a civil rights lawyer, served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama under President Bill Clinton. In the landmark case of his career, he prosecuted two former Ku Klux Klansmen for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which killed four Black girls.
In the Senate, bills championed by Jones that became law included a measure to permanently fund historically black colleges and universities and one requiring the public release of documents related to unsolved criminal civil rights cases.
About a year after leaving Congress, Jones served as a “sherpa,” guiding Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson through the Senate’s confirmation process. Jackson was confirmed in April 2022.
Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell, one of two Democrats in the state’s House delegation, told the Alabama Political Reporter that Jones had “beaten the Republican machine before, and he cannot be counted out.”
“He was a terrific senator and is a well-respected legislator, attorney, and solid fundraiser who has the smarts, connections, and dogged determination to take on Senator Tuberville,” she told the outlet.
But Jones faces tough odds in his bid to become the first Democrat elected governor of Alabama since 1998. Ivey won a second full term in 2022 by 38 points, while President Donald Trump carried the state by more than 30 points last fall.
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