Tommy Tuberville votes in Auburn as Alabama Elections 2026 race tightens
Tommy Tuberville voted at a church in Auburn on Tuesday as alabama elections 2026 moved closer to a governor’s race he is widely favored to win. The Republican senator remains the clear favorite to become Alabama’s next governor, with Gov. Kay Ivey unable to seek another term.
Tuberville’s Auburn vote
Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach, described his pitch in football terms after casting his ballot. “It's gonna be SEC recruiting all over again. I'll be recruiting against Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana for manufacturing to come back to the state,” he said.
That line fits the way he has framed his campaign: as a contest for talent and jobs, not just office. It also places Auburn at the center of a race in which Tuberville is already being treated as the candidate to beat.
Kay Ivey and Doug Jones
Ivey cannot run for another term, leaving the Republican primary as the main route to the governor’s office. Tuberville’s standing is reinforced by his 2020 Senate win, when he ousted former Senator Doug Jones from that seat.
Jones is favored to head into a rematch with Tuberville in a crowded field of Democrats. That gives the race an immediate shape: Tuberville on one side as the clear Republican front-runner, Jones on the other as the Democratic name with the strongest path through a crowded field.
Alabama congressional districts
The governor’s race is unfolding alongside a separate election issue that affects voters in only part of the state. Primary elections were held Tuesday for three of Alabama’s seven congressional districts, while primaries in the other four were delayed until August 11 because those districts are being redrawn.
For voters in the three districts that went to the polls Tuesday, the ballot included those congressional primaries on the same day Tuberville voted. Voters in the four delayed districts will wait until August 11 for their primary contests, making redistricting the factor that split Alabama’s congressional calendar.
That leaves Tuberville’s governor bid as the main statewide contest moving now, while the congressional map work pushes part of the primary schedule into August. He voted in Auburn, spoke in the language of football, and remains positioned as the Republican who would take over from Ivey if the outcome tracks the current field.
