Former Sen. Doug Jones, the one Democrat to win statewide workplace in Alabama in years, is now seeking to mount one other upset.
Jones beforehand defeated scandal-plagued Republican Roy Moore in a shocking shake-up in 2017, and served within the Senate for 3 years earlier than he was unseated by present Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
On Monday, Jones introduced that he was launching one other longshot bid, this time for the state’s gubernatorial seat.
“We’re going to do everything we can to bring the people back to the state capital of Montgomery, Alabama,” Jones stated in a video announcement on X.
Alex Wong by way of Getty Photographs
Jones’s marketing campaign for governor will as soon as once more pit him towards Tuberville, a former Auburn College soccer coach and Trump loyalist who declared his candidacy for the governor’s workplace earlier this yr.
Jones faces an uphill battle attributable to Alabama’s conservative voters. Tuberville gained by roughly 20 factors through the 2020 Senate election, and Trump gained the state by about 30 factors in 2024. Jones can even need to beat a handful of different candidates in a Democratic main within the spring.
Earlier than his time within the Senate, Jones served as a U.S. Lawyer and was recognized for prosecuting two Ku Klux Klan members for his or her function within the 1963 bombing of the sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham. As a senator, he didn’t shrink back from confronting Trump, even voting to convict the president in his 2020 impeachment trial.
“Last time Doug Jones ran against Coach Tuberville, it didn’t go well for Doug,” Tuberville spokesperson Mallory Jaspers wrote on X. “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. This race is already over — but if Comrade Doug wants to get blown out again, be our guest.”
Jones signaled he was ready to go on the offensive towards Tuberville, who’s already confronted questions over his residency within the state attributable to a seaside home he owns in Florida.
“What we have heard all along is that Alabama wants their 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 stated in his video. “And Alabama wants their next governor to be someone who treats this state with grace and dignity and not just like a rest stop on the way to the Florida beach.”
