Doug Jones tries to pull off another upset in Alabama gubernatorial race
Former Sen. Doug Jones, the only Democrat to win state office in Alabama in years, is now looking to cause another upset.
Jones previously defeated scandal-plagued Republican Roy Moore in a stunning reshuffle in 2017, and served in the Senate for three years before being unseated by incumbent Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
On Monday, Jones announced he would launch another risky bid, this time for the state’s governorship.
“We’re going to do everything we can to bring people back to the state capital of Montgomery, Alabama,” Jones said in a video announcement on X.
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Jones’ campaign for governor will once again pit him against Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach and Trump loyalist who declared his candidacy for governor earlier this year.
Jones faces an uphill battle because of Alabama’s conservative electorate. Tuberville won by about 20 points during the 2020 Senate election, and Trump won the state by about 30 points in 2024. Jones will also have to beat a handful of other candidates in a Democratic primary in the spring.
Prior to his time in the Senate, Jones served as a federal prosecutor and was known for prosecuting two members of the Ku Klux Klan for their role in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. As a senator, he did not shy away from confronting Trump, and even voted to convict the president in his 2020 impeachment trial.
“The last time Doug Jones ran against Coach Tuberville, it didn’t go well for Doug,” Tuberville spokesperson Mallory Jaspers wrote on
Jones indicated he was prepared to go on the offensive against Tuberville, who already faces questions about his residency in the state because of a beach house he owns in Florida.
“What we’ve heard all along is that Alabama wants its next governor to be someone who lives here, who works here, who listens to the people of this state, who understands the people of this state,” Jones said in his video. “And Alabama wants its next governor to be someone who will treat this state with grace and dignity and not just as a rest stop on the way to the beach in Florida.”