Senator Tuberville’s successor?
Alabama US Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) has scheduled what he is terming “a Big Announcement,” for August 15 and the supposition is he will declare his candidacy for the state’s open US Senate seat.
The major clue is the festival-type event he is holding in the city of Sylvania, which is in the northeastern sector and about as far from his southern Alabama congressional district one can get and still be within the state.
Assuming Rep. Moore runs for the Senate, his major Republican opponent, to date, will be Attorney General Steve Marshall who is ineligible to seek a third term for his current position. Others are expected to join. The eventual Republican nominee will become the prohibitive favorite to win the general election.
The best potential Democratic contender would be the former US Senator Doug Jones, but he lost to now-Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) by a 60-40% margin in 2020, and the chance for a Democrat to win a Senate seat against a credible Republican in 2026 appears slim at best.
Mr. Jones won the special Senate election in 2017 against a flawed Republican candidate, former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, but was denied a full term in the succeeding regular election.
Mr. Jones, also a former US Attorney from the Northern District of Alabama, confirms he is considering returning to elective politics, but he may be leaning more toward running for the open Governor’s position and again facing Mr. Tuberville. He publicly states he is not fully committed to running for any office.
The Senate seat is open because incumbent Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach who still prefers his “Coach” title, has already announced his gubernatorial bid. Incumbent Gov. Kay Ivey (R) is term-limited.
Rep. Moore leaving the House to run for the Senate would open his southern 1st District that stretches from Mobile in the far southwestern corner of Alabama along the southern Alabama-Florida border all the way to Georgia. The 1st is solidly Republican, carrying a Dave’s Redistricting App partisan lean of 76.5R – 22.0D.
If this scenario unfolds, it is likely that we will see a political comeback attempt in an open 1st District. When the courts ruled the 2021 Alabama map a racial gerrymander, a new map was installed for the 2024 election and beyond. The result, in addition to creating a new majority minority district in the Montgomery-Mobile area, paired Republican incumbents Moore and then-Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Mobile) into a new 1st District.
In a tough early March 2024 Republican primary campaign, Rep. Moore proved victorious in a 52-48% result, a margin of 3,644 votes of 104,268 cast ballots.
Since the election, former Rep. Carl has supported efforts to overturn the court-mandated map, but the US Supreme Court ordering new oral arguments on the Louisiana map, which has a similar issue to that in Alabama and would delay any redraw, suggests that odds are now strong that no new map will be installed in either place for the 2026 elections.
Mr. Carl had previously indicated he would run in the Mobile anchored seat under a new map, so it is likely that he will return if the current 1st District becomes open. If so, we can expect a crowded 1st District Republican primary with the eventual nominee becoming a prohibitive favorite for the general election.
In terms of Rep. Moore’s US Senate chances, should such a campaign materialize, at present he must be considered as a serious contender for the Republican nomination and, therefore, is a viable possibility as Sen. Tuberville’s successor.
