Outside the Beltway

“U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary” by Joshua Sukoff is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Candidate Quality and the Alabama Governor’s Race

Testing a hypothesis or two.

Steven L. Taylor
11

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“U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing for Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary” by Joshua Sukoff is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

AL.com reports: Doug Jones will enter 2026 Alabama governor’s race.

Following weeks of hints and speculation, it’s official: former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones plans to enter the Alabama governor’s race against current U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville.

The news was first reported on “The Voice of Alabama Politics,” an online news and analysis show hosted by Bill Britt, editor of the Alabama Political Reporter. “I got a call from those very, very close to former U.S. Senator Doug Jones,” said Britt. “And we can now report with certainty that Doug Jones will file his paperwork with the Secretary of State this coming week to run for governor of Alabama.”

Readers may recall that Jones bested Republican Roy Moore for a US Senate seat in a 2017 special election in what the late Doug Mataconis correctly called “an electoral perfect storm.” Jones squeaked out a 1.7% margin of victory after Moore had found himself credibly accused of trolling the mall for teens some years earlier when he was decidedly not a teen.

Jones has an impressive resume and will be the highest-quality Democratic candidate for governor in some time. As such, many might be inclined to go this route.

However, it seems worth noting that Jones lost re-election to the Senate to challenger Tommy Tuberville, 60.1%-39.7% in 2020.

In 2022, the Republican incumbent, Kay Ivey, won reelection 66.9% to 29.2% against a poorly funded, no-name candidate. I would expect Jones to do better than that, but to still lose pretty handily.

Jones may demonstrate that a higher quality candidate will lose not quite as badly as a lower quality one, but the main driver, barring some Roy Moore-like scandal, will be the state’s partisan mix.

It seems worth noting that the last time there was a truly competitive gubernatorial contest in Alabama was probably 1994, at a moment in which the Democrats were still the dominant party statewide, but the inversion to it being a Republican state had started.

As such, I will soon have to deal with no longer having one of the dumbest US Senators to having one of the dumbest governors. That may not sound like a political science take, but I am pretty confident it is an empirically true assessment.

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11 responses to “Candidate Quality and the Alabama Governor’s Race”

  1. Sleeping Dog Avatar
    Sleeping Dog

    Coach as governor? Alabamians deserve what they’ll get. Partisanship sucks, particularly when the majority party fails to offer quality candidates.

    Funny, yours is the second reference to Doug I’ve seen today. In my tumblr feed, someone reposted an old tweet by Doug. It got me to thinking about Doug and Steve Story. I hope that they both found peace in death that was denied them in life.

    7
  2. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Isn’t there another successful coach in Alabama who’s even a little bit less stupid?

    5
  3. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    but the main driver, barring some Roy Moore-like scandal, will be the state’s partisan mix.

    And the fact that the election happens the day of the midterms. Part of what enabled Jones to win in Dec. 2017 was that it was a special election outside the normal time frame. The invariably low turnout always makes elections like those more sensitive to sudden shifts. It’s essentially the same as what enabled Scott Brown’s surprising win in MA in Jan. 2010, quality-candidate or not (and that had more to do with the other candidate’s incompetence than Brown’s strength). If it had been held on Nov. 6, 2018 along with the rest of the midterm races, I think the regular turnout would have been enough to drag even the scandal-ridden Roy Moore across the finish line.

    1
  4. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Kylopod: Indeed. There is, in fact, a long list of things that led to the “perfect storm” in question. The timing was part of it. Some time-specific politics that led to Moore being the nominee was part of it as well.

  5. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Kathy:

    Sure, Nick Saban.

    1
  6. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @CSK: Keeping in mind I would prefer not to draw from the coaching ranks, Saban is substantially smarter than Tuberville, and is one of the few (only?) people I could think of in the state who could run under any party label and win a statewide race in this state.

    Indeed, Saban running as a Dem would be a fascinating experiment to test the boundaries of partisanship’s hold on voters.

    (I say this having no idea what Saban’s politics are).

    3
  7. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @CSK:

    So, draft him. That’s a time-honored tradition in football 😛

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I wouldn’t pick a coach as my first, second, third, etc., choice, either. But if the choice were between a dumb coach and smart one, I’d pick the latter.

    It would be an interesting debate, too, centered on the pressing issues of the day like the prevent defense, Tampa 2 coverage, and overtime rules.

    2
  8. a country lawyer Avatar
    a country lawyer

    Sadly, Tennessee is about to endure the same sad fate as Alabama. Senator Marsha Blackburn, who shares the same IQ ranking as Tuberville will likely be our next Governor.

    1
  9. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    In 2022, the Republican incumbent, Kay Ivey, won reelection 66.9% to 29.2% against a poorly funded, no-name candidate. I would expect Jones to do better than that, but to still lose pretty handily.

    Ivey doesn’t have the same name recognition as Tuberville. And now that Tuberville has been a “successful” Senator, I can see him really obliterating Jones more than Ivey obliterating no-name.

    Unless Jones has information about Tuberville molesting athletes.

    Best of luck to the Great State of Alabama.

    1
  10. Kylopod Avatar
    Kylopod

    @a country lawyer:

    Sadly, Tennessee is about to endure the same sad fate as Alabama. Senator Marsha Blackburn, who shares the same IQ ranking as Tuberville will likely be our next Governor.

    So, Blackburn in TN, Tuberville in AL, and Michael Bennet in CO–is it my imagination or is there an unusually high number of sitting Senators seeking the governorship? It’s usually the other way around.

  11. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Gustopher:

    I can see him really obliterating Jones more than Ivey obliterating no-name.

    Perhaps. I expect the margins to be closer (but clearly still decisive). Probably close to the 60ish-40ish from the Senatorial contest in 2020.

    Ivey was a relatively popular incumbent who had a long period of state-level service. Her opponent barely ran a campaign.

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