Will Doug Jones pull off another Alabama miracle in 2026?

Come November Alabama voters could see two familiar names on the ballot for governor On Dec former Democratic Sen Doug Jones declared his candidacy joining current GOP Sen Tommy Tuberville who defeated him in his reelection bid by points Both candidates have primary elections in May With President Donald Trump and the GOP s declining poll numbers the stage appears to have been set for Democratic wins in the midterms and possibly including surprise victories like the one that took Jones to the Senate in and foreshadowed a big blue wave the following year The Alabama Senate special poll pitted Jones against Republican nominee Judge Roy Moore to fill the seat of GOP Sen Jeff Sessions who had been tapped as Donald Trump s attorney general But that race foreshadowed more than Democrats preeminence in the midterms It was a referendum on what we now know to be common behavior among several of our political and business elites the creepy habit of powerful older men targeting underage girls for sex It s not that such a thing was unheard of before but with MeToo and more just now revelations from the Epstein files that show no signs of stopping we now know it has been a much more pervasive activity among the nation s elite than previously understood Related Republicans implode after stunning Democratic victories In it was quite a revelation that Moore the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court whose claim to fame was an insistence on displaying the Ten Commandments in and outside society buildings allegedly had a long history of coercing girls and young women into tawdry sexual situations Although he had been under clouds of corruption for particular years and was highly controversial this came as a shock to the Alabama electorate and it opened the door for Jones to be the first Democrat elected statewide in nearly two decades Best known as the man who prosecuted Ku Klux Klan members responsible for one of the the bulk notorious events in the Civil Rights Movement the bombing of the th Street Baptist Church which killed four Black girls on Sept Jones had an excellent reputation in the state as a former U S attorney Unfortunately because the special polling was only to serve out the remainder of Sessions term Jones had to run again in and was beaten by former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville a man who revealed during his campaign that the three branches of governing body are the House the Senate and the executive Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts Since then Tuberville has been a train wreck in the Senate He has continued to display an astonishing ignorance about civic life such as when he suggested postponing Joe Biden s inauguration in due to the Covid- pandemic apparently unaware that the Constitution sets the date as Jan But Tuberville has also become infamous for a series of racist gaffes which have been beyond the pale even for MAGA politicians In October he compared the descendants of enslaved people to criminals The following year he claimed that white nationals are unfairly labeled as racist He later attempted to walk back his comments At a Trump rally in he stated that Democrats want crime because they want to take over what you got They want to control what you have They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that Tuberville s rhetoric on immigration is as bad as Trump s During a June interview in which he was discussing immigration and sanctuary cities he lambasted these inner-city rats that live off the federal administration it s time we find these rats and we send them back home We need your help to stay independent Subscribe this day to advocacy Heather Digby Parton s commentary Republicans are confident that Tuberville will win the governorship even though he apparently doesn t live in Alabama and don t see Jones as any real competition Jones however clearly believes that conditions have changed dramatically since and that Tuberville now has a record he will have to defend unlike five years ago when he was just a good-old boy-football coach That record includes acting as Donald Trump s rubber stamp and embarrassing the state with his ignorance It s untelling if that will be a deal breaker Republicans outnumber Democrats in voter registration by and a majority of Alabama voters could agree with Tuberville But has seen upsets in unexpected places Mississippi Democrats broke a Republican supermajority in the state Senate in November by flipping two seats On Dec in Georgia a Democrat won a deep red seat in the state House For the first time in three decades Miami s mayor will be a Democrat On the other hand despite the party s hopes Democrats lost the chance for a pickup in a widely watched race in Tennessee s seventh congressional district Based on Alabama s electoral map a Jones triumph in November seems impossible No Democrat has held the governorship since Then again back in majority of people thought there was no way Roy Moore could be beaten and Doug Jones surprised them Maybe it will happen again Read more about this topic Ruwa Romman s incident for economic populism in Georgia Zohran Mamdani took on the entire political establishment and won The National Guardsman who won t take orders from Trump The post Will Doug Jones pull off another Alabama miracle in appeared first on Salon com