Tommy Tuberville

Tommy Tuberville
Senior U.S. Senator from Alabama From: January 3, 2021 – present
Predecessor	Doug Jones
Successor	Incumbent (no successor)
Information
Party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Suzanne Fette
Religion	Church of Christ

Thomas Hawley “Tommy” Tuberville (born September 18, 1954, age 71) is one of Alabama's two incumbent U.S. Senators, serving as the senior senator of Alabama. He unseated Democrat Doug Jones by a landslide.

He was formerly the head football coach for Auburn University from 1998 to 2008, leading Auburn to an undefeated season in 2004 yet, surprisingly (given their membership in the powerful Southeastern Conference), left out of the national championship game (the winner, USC, would later be forced to forfeit its title due to illegal recruiting; in 2025 Auburn would finally be recognized as the national champions). He also coached at Texas Tech and Cincinnati and was the defensive coordinator at Miami during its national championship runs in the 1990s.

U.S. Senate campaign

Tuberville announced in April 2019 his run for U.S. Senate.

Tuberville's Senate bid was endorsed by Donald Trump, who has held a strong disdain for Jeff Sessions over incompetence as attorney general.

Initial primary and runoff

In the Republican primary held on March 3, 2020, Tuberville finished first place with 33.4% of the vote. Other candidates who ran included Jeff Sessions, who finished second with 31.6%, US Rep. Bradley Byrne, who came third with just under 25% of the vote, State Rep. Arnold Mooney, and others.

Under Alabama law, since no one won a majority of the votes in the primary, a runoff was held between Tuberville and Sessions.

The Republican primary runoff election was initially set to be held on March 31, 2020, though due to the coronavirus outbreak, Alabama governor Kay Ivey delayed it to July 14, 2020. Tuberville ultimately won over Sessions by a twenty-point margin,.

General election results

Given Alabama is a strongly Republican state, Tuberville easily won the general election over incumbent Senator Jones by around twenty percentage points.

Tenure in office and criticism

Tuberville is a member of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee. He is one of eight Members of Congress who were the victims of Jack Smith's illegal surveillance.

Tuberville has blamed President Trump for veteran health care problems despite the latter's accomplishments with such. The comment was strongly criticized by Republican then-candidate Arnold Mooney, who called on Tuberville to apologize for disregarding the major accomplishments.

Tuberville has been criticized for arguably being less tough on immigration than his primary runoff opponent Jeff Sessions.

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin has called Tuberville “some empty suit” who will “parrot U.S. Chamber of Commerce talking points.”

Gubernatorial Campaign

After initially announcing his campaign for Senate re-election, in May 2025 he announced he would not run for re-election as Senator, instead opting to run for Governor of Alabama, to replace the outgoing Kay Ivey, who is term limited. Within the first 24 hours after his announcement, he purportedly set a state record of raising more than $2 million for his campaign (though refusing to accept PAC donations) and has reportedly continued to set fund raising records since. Notwithstanding the rivalry between Auburn and Alabama fans, he has a wide base of popularity among both conservative and business groups as well as the general public; given Republican party dominance in the state, he is expected to become the state's next Governor.

External links

• Official Campaign Website
• Tommy Tuberville - Ballotpedia