Former Senate rivals Tuberville and Jones head to rematch in Alabama governor's race

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Former Senate race rivals U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Doug Jones are headed to a rematch in the Alabama governor's race.

Tuberville easily won the GOP nomination and Jones did the same in the Democratic primary.

“I’m not running against a person. I’m running against an ideology that is so bad, that is so far left, that has nothing to do with the last 250 years that this country’s been great,” Tuberville said to supporters in his election night speech.

“Who’s ready to win an election in November?” Jones asked cheering supporters as he took the stage.

“This campaign has always rested on one simple belief that there are enough folks in Alabama who refuse to accept the way things are, the way things have always been.”

Tuberville's decision to run for governor ignited a rare and fierce battle among Republicans for an open Senate seat that is all but certain to stay red. U.S. Rep. Barry Moore and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall are among the best-known candidates in a field of seven Republicans.

The former college football coach entered politics with his election to the U.S. Senate in 2020 and opted not to seek a second term. During his time in the U.S. Senate, Tuberville was closely aligned with President Donald Trump, who endorsed Tuberville in 2020 and has also backed his bid for governor.

Trump has endorsed Moore, a three-term congressman and member of the House's conservative Freedom Caucus.

“Barry is going to do a fantastic job. He will fight for you in the Senate,” Trump said during a brief telephone rally for Moore supporters on Monday night.

Marshall is stressing his record as attorney general, including his work with other Republican-led states in filing court actions that challenged former President Joe Biden's policies and supported Trump.

The Republican candidates also include former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson, business owner Rodney Walker, cardiac surgeon Dr. Dale Shelton Deas Jr., former U.S. Navy submarine commander Seth Burton and Morgan Murphy, who dropped out of the race but remains on the ballot because of a printing deadline.

The crowded field increases the chance that no one will receive a majority of the vote and the nominee will be decided by a June 16 runoff.

On the Democratic side, business owner Dakarai Larriett, business owner Kyle Sweetser, lawyer Everett Wess and chemist Mark S. Wheeler II are seeking the nomination. Any of them would face an uphill climb in deep-red Alabama.

The state's other senator, Republican Sen. Katie Britt, is not up for election this year.

Alabama voters will cast ballots in congressional primaries, but a redistricting fight has confused many.

Primary voters will cast ballots Tuesday in all seven congressional districts, but the state currently plans to void the results in four districts as it goes forward with a plan to change congressional maps based on the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has scheduled special primary elections on Aug. 11 for the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts. The change comes after the state got permission to switch to a different congressional map that could help Republicans pick up a House seat in November.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said the Tuesday votes will be tabulated in the four affected Alabama congressional districts but will be “void for the purposes of determining the party nominees." The Aug. 11 primary will determine those nominees in winner-take-all races without a runoff, he said.

The biggest change occurs to the 2nd Congressional District now represented by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures. The district now stretches from Mobile through Montgomery to the Georgia border.

However, the district lines remain the subject of litigation. The NAACP Legal Defense Find and other groups are seeking to stop the use of the new map. If they are successful, the winner of the Tuesday primary will determine the party nominees.

But if they're not and the new map goes forward, the Aug. 11 special primary will decide which nominees will appear on ballots in November.

Shayla Mitchell, an organizer with the Alabama Election Protection Coalition, said the situation has fueled voter confusion.

“People assumed that our election was cancelled, which is not true,” Mitchell said.

Anthony Lee, 80, said he was upset about the state’s effort to switch congressional maps but was unsure where the dispute stood. He said he wasn't sure which map the state was using on Tuesday but was prepared to vote again if needed.

“I’m totally against them changing maps," he said as he walked up to his polling place in Tuskegee. "It’s diluting the Black vote.”

Tuskegee sits in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District now represented by Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures. The state plans to void the results of Tuesday’s election and hold new primaries in August under a different map that would give the GOP a chance to reclaim the district.

The November governor’s race will feature a rematch between Tuberville and former Jones, who is seeking a political comeback. He became the last Democrat to win a statewide race in Alabama during a special election in 2017.

Tuberville defeated Jones in 2020, boosted by a Trump endorsement and recognizability from his time as a football coach.

During the primary, opponent Ken McFeeters accused Tuberville of not meeting the legal requirement to have lived in the state for seven years. Tuberville maintains he met the residency requirement, and the Alabama Republican Party dismissed McFeeters’ challenge.

Before running for office, Jones, a lawyer and former U.S. attorney, was best known for prosecuting two Klu Klux Klansmen responsible for Birmingham’s infamous 1963 church bombing.

The attorney general’s race has turned into a costly and contentious fight.

Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell, Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey and Katherine Robertson, chief counsel for Attorney General Steve Marshall, are battling for the Republican nomination. Robertson and Mitchell have traded a series of barbs and accusations.

An outside group funded an advertisement critical of Mitchell for writing the main court opinion that led to in vitro fertilization clinics in the state temporarily shutting down. The ruling said frozen embryos could be considered “unborn children” and couples could pursue wrongful death claims after their embryos were destroyed in a hospital accident. The 2024 decision relied on an Alabama law from 1872.

Mitchell said he supports IVF and that the ad is distorting the facts of the case.

The winner of the Republican primary will face Jeff McLaughlin, a former state legislator who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary.

FILE - Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Jared Hudson poses for a for a photo during the Stars of the State luncheon sponsored by the Wiregrass Republican Women, May 7, 2026, in Enterprise, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Steve Marshall poses for a for a photo during the Stars of the State luncheon sponsored by the Wiregrass Republican Women, May 7, 2026, in Enterprise, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - Rep. Barry Moore, left, and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas during a House Judiciary Committee Field Hearing, April 17, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

This combination of photos shows Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, from left, Jared Hudson on May 7, 2026, in Enterprise, Ala., Rep. Barry Moore on April 17, 2023, in New York, center, and Steve Marshall on May 7, 2026, in Enterprise, Ala., right. (AP Photo)

ATLANTA (AP) — Democrat Jasmine Clark won her party’s nomination on Tuesday to succeed Rep. David Scott for a two-year term representing Georgia’s 13th Congressional District after Scott died in April while seeking another term.

Clark is a state representative, microbiologist and a lecturer at Emory University who has promised to prioritize science in Congress. Her candidacy was boosted by more than $2 million in outside spending by cryptocurrency interests, but Clark said she did not court the support.

Clark will be the odds-on favorite to succeed Scott for a full term starting next January, with Jonathan Chavez unopposed to become the Republican nominee.

Meanwhile, two-term U.S. Rep. Mike Collins advanced to the Republican runoff for the U.S. Senate.

The owner of a family trucking business, Collins, 58, represents a district east of Atlanta. The ally of President Donald Trump calls himself a “MAGA workhorse” and has made immigration enforcement a focus of his candidacy.

Georgia Republicans are looking for a challenger to Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff. Of the other contenders, Rep. Buddy Carter is playing up his conservative records on Capitol Hill, while former college football coach Derek Dooley pitches himself as a political outsider.

In the Republican primary for governor, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and healthcare billionaire Rick Jackson have advanced to the June 16 runoff, extending a bruising campaign battle.

Trump endorsed Jones last year, and Jones thanked him Tuesday night. A Jones win would boost Trump’s influence in a critical battleground state. The president’s kingmaker record in Georgia had been shaky, failing to dislodge Gov. Brian Kemp and others in 2022 and backing Herschel Walker in a Senate loss that year.

Democratic voters are also considering who should lead the party’s effort to win the governor’s office for the first time since 1998. The candidates include Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor; Geoff Duncan, a Republican-turned-Democrat who served as lieutenant governor; Jason Esteves, a former state senator; and Mike Thurmond, a former state labor commissioner.

Ossoff, 39, had no opposition in Tuesday's primary. This is his first reelection campaign.

He's the only Democratic senator in the country seeking reelection this year in a state that Trump won in 2024, making his race one of the most closely watched in the country. He has positioned himself as a critic of political corruption, targeting Trump and his sons for business dealings that have enriched the first family.

Meanwhile, the Republican primary has been a test of fealty to the president.

Carter has attacked Collins over a House ethics complaint accusing him of abusing taxpayer funds by paying the girlfriend of a top aide for work she allegedly didn't perform. The Office of Congressional Conduct, after an initial inquiry, has referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee.

Collins denies wrongdoing.

“If taxpayers can’t trust you to properly steward their money, how can they trust you to be a U.S. senator?” Carter asked Collins in a primary debate.

“Buddy,” Collins shot back, “I can tell through your voice that you know how the polling is going out there.”

Collins sponsored the Lake Riley Act, a 2025 law that requires immigrants be detained when charged with certain crimes. Republicans believe the issue damages Ossoff because he initially voted against the measure before supporting it after Trump’s 2024 victory.

Collins criticized Ossof during remarks Tuesday night. He talked up his support for the Lake Riley Act and looked ahead to the general election.

“You can replace a Democrat with an actual conservative,” he said.

More than $125 million has been spent on advertising in the Republican primary for governor, with more than $66 million of that spent by Jackson’s campaign, according to the latest figures from ad-tracking firm AdImpact. By contrast, Democrats running for governor have only spent about $4 million.

Jones argues that his conservative record as a state senator and lieutenant governor, combined with Trump's support, should make him the clear choice for Republican voters.

“I think Georgia just spoke, y’all,” Jones said at his election night party. “The reason why I know we’re gonna win is because of friends and family members."

Jackson is betting that his outsider pitch will win over antiestablishment conservatives. On Tuesday night, he called Jones a political insider who is “working inside the system for his own benefit.”

“I cannot be bought, and I will not back down,” Jackson said.

On the Democratic side, Bottoms has been endorsed by former President Joe Biden after serving in his administration and is downplaying attacks on her one-term record as mayor of Atlanta. She's the only Black woman in the Democratic field, which can be a powerful advantage in a state where Black women are the bedrock of the party.

Three other top Democrats have hopes of reaching a runoff. As a former Republican, Duncan argues that he can best attract swing voters to help Democrats win. Thurmond is campaigning on his deep experience in state government and Esteves argues he can build the “multiracial, multigenerational coalition” to win Georgia's young and diverse electorate.

Scott's death scrambled the race that had mainly been about attacking him as too old and too absent. Voters in the majority-Black district, which wraps around the southern and eastern suburbs of Atlanta, will also vote in an all-party special election July 28 to fill his unexpired term.

In the 11th District northwest of Atlanta, Loudermilk announced his retirement and endorsed staffer Rob Adkerson, who's challenged by neurologist John Cowan and Public Service Commissioner Tricia Pridemore.

In the 10th District east of Atlanta, state Rep. Houston Gaines is the top Republican seeking to take the departing Collins' seat. Jim Kingston, the son of longtime U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, is the top Republican to take Carter's seat in coastal Georgia's 1st District.

In northeast Georgia's 9th District, three-term Republican incumbent Andrew Clyde fended off primary challenges from former Gainesville Mayor Sam Couvillon and Hall County Commissioner Gregg Poole.

Tuesday is the general election for Georgia's judgeships. The posts are technically nonpartisan, but eight of the nine justices on the state Supreme Court were appointed by Republicans governors. Democrats are supporting Miracle Rankin in her challenge to Justice Charlie Bethel. They hope a strong Democratic turnout could produce the first defeat of an incumbent justice since 1922.

Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren won over Democrat-supported former state Sen. Jen Jordan on Tuesday. A third justice, Ben Land, is unopposed for a six-year term.

The state Judicial Qualifications Commission, which investigates allegations of wrongdoing by judges, said in statements dated Sunday that Jordan and Rankin violated rules of judicial conduct by publicly endorsing each other and making statements supporting the restoration of abortion rights.

The commission said it reached its conclusions, which are not a final determination, after receiving and reviewing a complaint about each candidate.

State Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey called the commission's statements “a cynical attempt by a mere bureaucratic arm of the Georgia Republican establishment to hide the truth about this race from Georgia voters.”

Amy is a former Associated Press reporter. Associated Press reporter Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, contributed.

Georgia gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones meets with supporters during a primary election night watch party, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Jackson, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., speaks to supporters in Acworth, Ga., on Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

Georgia Republican candidate for governor Burt Jones speaks to supporters Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Smyrna, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson speaks to voters during a campaign stop, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Hiram, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, arrives to vote early in the Georgia Primary Election, Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)