Alabama governor rematch and Senate runoffs set after primaries
Alabama voters on Tuesday chose party nominees for state and federal offices, setting up a governor rematch and runoff elections for an open U.S. Senate seat, even as redistricting fights threatened to disrupt how some House results count.
The governor’s race will feature a rematch between former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who easily won their respective primaries. Tuberville’s move into the governor contest produced a crowded Republican primary battle earlier in the process for a U.S. Senate opening that the state’s political landscape is expected to keep in Republican hands.
Jones, who served a short U.S. Senate term after winning a special election in 2017, is seeking to return to the chamber. In his pitch to voters, he framed his campaign in terms of changing the state’s course on issues including healthcare and the cost of living.
“Change means rising wages, including raising the minimum wage,” Jones said. “Change means expanding Medicaid to make healthcare affordable. Change means better jobs.”
Tuberville said he was not running against Jones personally, and instead cast the matchup as an ideological contest. “I’m not running against him. I’m really not. I’m running against socialism and communism,” he said, adding that he viewed the contrast as far from “the last 250 years” of American history and argued it was not aligned with what he said had made the country “great.”
The rematch comes after Tuberville defeated Jones in 2020, when the senator returned to national politics by winning office with support from President Donald Trump. Jones, meanwhile, was the last Democrat to win statewide election in Alabama and rose to national attention for the unlikely 2017 Senate victory.
Senate nomination headed to June 16 runoff
With Tuberville’s governor bid leaving an open Senate spot, the GOP primary that decided the Republican Senate field moved to a runoff stage. The runoff for the U.S. Senate slot—between the Republican and Democratic nominees—will be held June 16, according to the timetable described by the Associated Press.
On the Republican side, U.S. Rep. Barry Moore advanced to a runoff for the party’s nomination. Moore is a three-term congressman and a member of the House’s conservative Freedom Caucus, and he has said Alabama should send a “Trump conservative” to the Senate. He told supporters Tuesday night, “We’re going to win this thing, and God’s going to bless this great nation.”
Trump endorsed Moore, giving him an additional boost in a crowded field. During a brief telephone rally Monday night, Trump said, “Barry is going to do a fantastic job. He will fight for you in the Senate.”
Moore’s campaign messaging also used a blunt Washington theme, including comments about taking on waste and obstruction. He said he would be the man to “take out the trash” in Washington, and he added Tuesday, “God’s going to send a garbage man to the United States Senate.”
The other Republican runoff slot appeared too close to call early, with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson in a tight race for the nomination. Marshall’s campaign stressed his record in filing court actions challenging former President Joe Biden’s policies and in supporting Trump-aligned legal efforts, while Hudson’s candidacy was competing for traction in a late-developing runoff contest.
On the Democratic side, business owner Dakarai Larriett and lawyer Everett Wess moved to a runoff, leaving a Democratic nominee to be decided before the general-election match-up. Alabama’s partisan lean was described as making either Democratic candidate’s path difficult.
Redistricting fight could void House results in four districts
Separately from the Senate and governor contests, a redistricting fight over congressional maps appeared to be reshaping the schedule for some U.S. House races. The state said Tuesday results would be tabulated in all seven congressional districts, but the plan would “void” the results in four districts and hold new primaries in August under a different map.
Gov. Kay Ivey scheduled special primary elections on Aug. 11 for Alabama’s 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts. The change followed permission from federal authorities for Alabama to switch to a congressional map that could benefit Republicans in November, a development tied to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act.
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said the Tuesday votes would be tabulated in the four affected congressional districts but would be “void for the purposes of determining the party nominees.” Allen said the Aug. 11 primary would determine the party nominees in winner-take-all races without a runoff.
One of the biggest changes involves the 2nd Congressional District now represented by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, described as stretching from Mobile through Montgomery to the Georgia border. The district lines, however, remained subject to litigation, with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other groups seeking to stop use of the new map.
If those legal efforts succeed, then the winner of the Tuesday primary would determine the party nominees. If the new map is used as scheduled, the Aug. 11 special primary would decide which nominees appear on November ballots.
Anthony Lee, 80, described being upset about the map switch while uncertain about where the dispute stood. “I’m totally against them changing maps,” Lee said while walking up to his 2nd Congressional District polling place in Tuskegee. “It’s diluting the Black vote.”
Attorney general runoff also advances
Beyond the governor and Senate contests, the GOP primary for Alabama attorney general also moved to a runoff. Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell advanced to a runoff, as did Katherine Robertson, the chief counsel for Attorney General Steve Marshall.
The attorney general runoff winner will face Jeff McLaughlin, a former state legislator who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.
An outside group funded an advertisement critical of Mitchell, based on his authorship of a court opinion that the ad described as leading to in vitro fertilization clinics in Alabama temporarily shutting down. The Associated Press reported that the ruling relied on an Alabama law from 1872 and said frozen embryos could be considered “unborn children,” and that couples could pursue wrongful death claims after embryos were destroyed in a hospital accident.
Mitchell said he supports IVF and that the advertisement was distorting the facts of the case.