Sen. Tommy Tuberville won the Republican primary for governor of Alabama on Tuesday, NBC News projects, making him the clear favorite to win the general election in the ruby-red state this fall.
The winner will replace outgoing Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who is term-limited and ineligible to run for re-election.
Alabama has not elected a Democratic 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 he finished a term that he was first elected to in 2020.
Trump endorsed Tuberville after he built a voting record closely aligned with Trump’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 Trump 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 afterward.
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 is on a collision course with the Democrat he defeated in the 2020 Senate race. Former Sen. Doug Jones, who won a 2017 special election in a stunning upset before he lost his seat in 2020, won the Democratic primary for governor, NBC News projects.
