By Jeff Poor
Former State Sen. Dick Brewbaker, who has become something of a pundit since leaving the Alabama Legislature in 2018, does not think Republicans should take Tommy Tuberville’s probable gubernatorial election victory over Democrat opponent Doug Jones for granted.
“Listen, I think Tommy Tuberville is going to be a great governor,” he said during a radio appearance last week. “But I need him to start campaigning because Doug Jones is everywhere, and except for small donor groups, I haven’t seen Tommy. I haven’t seen signs, heard anything on the radio. And I just hope Coach Tuberville is going to act like a candidate who doesn’t have this thing sewn up because if turnout is low enough, anything can happen. And Doug Jones has already proven that Republicans can screw up bad enough to actually lose a statewide race.”
I don’t necessarily share Senator Brewbaker’s outlook.
Unlike Doug Jones’ unlikely 2017 victory over Roy Moore, the Tuberville-Jones race will be decided on a general election ballot with several down-ballot contests, including a U.S. Senate race.
It is much easier for a Democrat to do the unthinkable when your opponent is Roy Moore, who at the time was being accused of sexually harassing underage females at the Gadsden Mall decades earlier in a special election set in the middle of December.
Even in that scenario, Doug Jones was only able to manufacture a 1.6% victory.
If Doug Jones somehow upsets Tommy Tuberville, after losing to him by 20 points in 2020, Republicans will likely be swept not only statewide but nationally as well.
Given Alabama’s state-level political apathy and the option to vote straight-party on a general election ballot, a Jones win is far-fetched.
With Tuberville a prohibitive favorite, he has declined to debate Jones.
If there was a tell that Jones was running as a longshot, the public calls for a debate signal as much. Winning campaigns don’t lobby for debates.
And as much as we may like to see a debate, when was the last time a debate in a statewide general election race impacted an outcome?
A Tuberville-Jones debate is less likely than a Jones win on November 3.
But what if by some strange event, we wake up on November 4 to a Governor-elect Doug Jones?
Jones would be Alabama’s first Democrat governor since Don Siegelman topped Fob James in the 1998 gubernatorial race.
Siegelman narrowly lost his reelection bid in 2002 by 3,120 votes, or roughly 0.22%.
Since then, no Democrat has come close to winning a governor’s race in Alabama.
In the event of a Jones win, Republicans would still likely maintain control of the Alabama Legislature. One would also have to assume Republicans would carry at least a handful of the other statewide elections on the ballot.
What could mixed government in Montgomery even look like?
It would not be unprecedented. Governors Guy Hunt, Fob James and Bob Riley led Alabama with Democrat-held majorities on Goat Hill.
Those days were not great for Alabama. The state suffered through bouts of proration. The effort to win “gotcha” political points led to corruption scandals that still plague Alabama today.
Would a Jones-GOP legislature be different?
Keep in mind, the legislature can override a gubernatorial veto with a simple majority. For Jones to accomplish anything, he would have to rely on legislative Democrats to use every parliamentary tactic available to slow a Republican majority and survive the regular session, which is limited to 30 meeting days within a period of 105 calendar days.
Any effort by Jones to mask himself as a moderate Democrat may be lost.
After he left the U.S. Senate in 2020, his politics and demeanor have shifted decidedly leftward. Perhaps it was playing the part to win favor from the Biden administration for a Cabinet appointment. Maybe he is playing to the CNN or MS NOW cameras.
It seems unlikely he would take on Montgomery in the form of Joe Manchin or John Fetterman.
Could he extend an olive branch to lawmakers? A sizeable portion of the Alabama Legislature is still affiliated with the Democratic Party and changed stripes after the 2010 GOP takeover.
The Legislature does not govern as one might expect in a ruby-red conservative state.
Many outside national assessments rate the Alabama Legislature as center-right and not right-wing reactionary, as many stereotypes about Alabama might suggest.
Whoever wins, and the odds are that it will be Tuberville, it will be a significant departure from Kay Ivey.
As if George Wallace’s multiple tenures weren’t enough, 10 years of Ivey should remind us why the authors of the Alabama Constitution were on to something when they put term limits in place.
Both Tuberville and Jones would likely remake the executive branch. Shaking things up won’t be easy, as Montgomery has seemingly become accustomed to the status quo.
That is the one thing that is more certain than a Tuberville victory in November.
