Sen. Tommy Tuberville won the Republican primary for governor of Alabama Tuesday, NBC News projects, making him the clear favorite to win the general election this fall in the ruby-red state.
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The winner this fall will replace outgoing Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who is term-limited and ineligible to run for re-election.
Alabama has not elected a Democrat for governor since 1998, and President Donald Trump, who endorsed Tuberville, carried the state by 30 points in 2024. Tuberville, a former college football coach, is poised to leave the Senate after finishing a term that he was first elected to in 2020.
The Trump endorsement came after Tuberville built a voting record closely aligned with the president’s preferences.
“I was proud to endorse ‘Coach’ when he ran for the Senate in 2020, and am honored to do so again. Tommy Tuberville has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of the Great State of Alabama,” Trump said Monday on social media.
Tuberville had Trump’s support in 2020 in a Republican Senate primary that included former Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general. Sessions infuriated the president by appointing a special counsel to investigate alleged links between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, and Trump fired him from the Cabinet in 2018 and repeatedly spoke out against him in the years that followed.
Now, Tuberville’s quest to jump from Washington to Montgomery set off a scramble among Republicans to replace him in the safe red seat.
Trump has endorsed Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., who has served in the House since 2021, in that race.
Meanwhile, Tuberville may be on a collision course with the Democrat he defeated in that 2020 Senate race.
Former Sen. Doug Jones, who won a 2017 special election in a stunning upset result before losing his seat in 2020, is leading the Democratic primary for governor, which is too early to call.
