Alabama Republicans are eagerly waiting to learn whether Sen. Tommy Tuberville will jump into the gubernatorial race to replace outgoing Gov. Kay Ivey in next year’s race.
Many of them think he’d be a fine candidate for the job, but that potential vacancy in the Senate would also leave a rare opening to move up the ranks in the deeply red state. Republicans acknowledged this could quickly become a big game of musical chairs.
John Wahl, chair of the Alabama Republican Party, told NOTUS he expects a potential Senate primary to be “very contested.”
“Senate seats don’t come open that often, and so there’s gonna be a lot of people looking, looking at this as an opportunity to test the waters a bit,” Wahl said.
John Merrill, Alabama’s former secretary of state who left the role after his second term, is among those who told NOTUS he is watching closely to see if Tuberville launches a campaign for governor out of interest in running to replace him.
“A number of people have asked me to look at that as a possibility,” Merrill said. “And that’s a race that would be very, very attractive to me and to a number of other people in our state.”
Even Tuberville acknowledged that, while he still has not made a decision about running, he’s “heard several names” of people who would be interested in his seat.
“I’ll give them all the advice in the world if I do this, but I ain’t decided whether I’m gonna do it yet or not,” Tuberville told NOTUS on Monday. “Yeah, there’ll be a bunch of people who run.”
Tuberville told CNN in April that he would make a decision on whether to run by Memorial Day.
Other politicians have also expressed interest in Tuberville’s current job. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said during a speech in March that if Tuberville left his seat, he would “look at the Senate race.”
During an interview with “Alabama Politics This Week” in May, former Democratic Sen. Doug Jones also left open the possibility of joining the race.
“I’m looking how best to stay in that fight with the groups that I’m working with on a national level, the groups that I’m working with on a state level,” Jones said. “I’m going to stay in this fight one way or another. What that means at this point, I can’t say.”
Rick Pate, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, is also making decisions regarding his political future based on Tuberville. He told NOTUS that he had been “considering” running for governor, but now that it seems Tuberville could jump in and suck “a lot of the oxygen out of the race,” he’s considering running for lieutenant governor instead.
“Obviously, it’s a vacant seat,” Pate said about the possibility of Tuberville’s Senate seat opening up. “You got some people that appeals to, to go to Washington and be in the Senate, it’s a pretty big deal.”
Despite the heavy interest in the race, one politician who has been rumored as a possibility, Lt. Gov Will Ainsworth, has made a point of trying to shut down speculation on whether he would run for Senate. On Thursday, he told a local radio station that he doesn’t “have much of an interest in running for the Senate” and that he’d only be interested in running for governor.
Semafor reported in late April that Tuberville had started telling his colleagues in the Senate that he was planning to run for governor, and Yellowhammer News reported he told donors at a private event that he had decided to leave the Senate.
As of Monday, no candidates have officially entered the race to replace Ivey, who is term-limited.
Several of Tuberville’s colleagues are eager to see him run.
“He’s been a great senator,” Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama told NOTUS. “He’s very conservative. His record aligns a lot with mine. I think he’d be a great governor, but he’s been a great senator.”
Former Rep. Mo Brooks told NOTUS he expects the potential Republican Senate primary to be contested. While it’s highly unlikely he would consider entering the race, he’s left open the possibility.
“The best way to describe it is that it is possible but unlikely. I’m having a very good life right now with my 14 grandchildren and eight kids and kids-in-law and wife. And I haven’t been shot at since I left Congress,” Brooks said, laughing. “That’s a plus.”
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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.