A rematch six years in the making — and a residency fight that could end it before November.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE RACE
With Gov. Kay Ivey term-limited out, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) and former Sen. Doug Jones (D) are set for a rematch of the 2020 Senate race that first put Tuberville in Washington. Both cleared their primaries on May 19. The general is November 3.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OUTRAGE #1: TOMMY TUBERVILLE MAY NOT ACTUALLY BE A “RESIDENT CITIZEN” OF ALABAMA
Alabama’s constitution doesn’t mess around on this one. To be governor, a candidate must be a “resident citizen” of the state for at least seven consecutive years before the election — meaning Tuberville needed to have been living in Alabama continuously since November 3, 2019. His own GOP primary opponent, Ken McFeeters, filed a formal challenge arguing he wasn’t, and the paper trail is messy enough that the fight has spilled into Alabama courts.
Here’s the timeline: Tuberville registered to vote in Walton County, Florida in May 2017 and told an ESPN promotional audience that year he’d “moved to Santa Rosa Beach,” calling it “a great place to live.” His wife registered to vote in Florida that same year. In October 2018, Tuberville’s wife and son began claiming a homestead exemption on an Auburn house — but Tuberville himself wasn’t on that deed until 2024. The following month, November 2018, Tuberville and his wife both voted by mail in Walton County, Florida.
Tuberville’s attorneys have since released heavily redacted tax records claiming he became an Alabama resident on August 1, 2018 — three months before he voted in Florida anyway. When Alabama Daily News asked him directly about the Florida vote, Tuberville said: “I don’t know whether I did or not.” He didn’t register to vote in Alabama until March 2019 — about two weeks before he announced his Senate run.
At a Shoals Republican Club meeting, Tuberville himself reportedly referred to himself as “a carpetbagger of this country,” saying he has “property” but is not an “every-day resident of Alabama.”
The Alabama Republican Party has rejected McFeeters’ challenge without explaining why — the party isn’t about to disqualify its own frontrunner. But the underlying facts are simple: a man running to be the “resident citizen” governor of Alabama was, by his own voting record, a Florida voter deep into the residency window the state’s constitution requires him to have cleared. If a Democrat had this paper trail, Fox News would be running it as the lead story every night until November.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OUTRAGE #2: THE MAN WHO BLOCKED MILITARY PROMOTIONS FOR A YEAR
Before the governor’s race, Tuberville spent 2023 holding a blanket blockade on hundreds of senior military promotions in protest of a Pentagon policy that covered travel costs for service members needing reproductive care unavailable in the state where they were stationed. The blockade stalled leadership appointments across every branch for months, drawing criticism even from members of his own party as a national-security risk. Jones has called Tuberville a “failed U.S. senator,” pointing to the blockade as exhibit A of a legislative record long on headlines and short on governing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DOUG JONES — THE COMEBACK ATTEMPT
Jones is best known statewide as the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed four Black girls. He pulled off a genuine upset in the 2017 special Senate election against Roy Moore, then lost the seat to Tuberville in 2020. No Democrat has held the Alabama governorship since 1998, and Republicans outnumber Democrats in voter registration by a wide margin — Jones is a clear underdog. But Alabama Democrats point to recent off-year upsets elsewhere in the South as reason for cautious optimism, and Jones is framing the race explicitly around the residency fight, saying Alabama deserves a governor who doesn’t treat the state “like a rest stop on the way to the Florida beach.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHY THIS RACE MATTERS TO PROJECT ZERO
This is a longshot on paper. But it’s also a test of whether “resident citizen” still means anything in a state constitution when the candidate breaking the rule has Trump’s endorsement and an 85% primary win. Zero starts by making sure nobody forgets the paper trail exists.
SCOREBOARD UPDATE: Alabama Governor. Status: Longshot, residency litigation ongoing. General: November 3.
— Project Zero Club | projectzero.club