Firebrand MAGA senator jumps into race for governor: report

=Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) will run for governor of Alabama rather than seek a second term in the Senate, reported Yellowhammer News on Thursday.

"Back in state while Congress is in recess, Tuberville told a group of donors at a private event on Wednesday night that his mind is officially made up," reported Grayson Everett. "Rather than seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate, he is ready to run his next race in Alabama, and serve the people of the state in Montgomery instead of Washington."

A former football coach, Tuberville initially wanted to run for governor in 2018, "but decided against it when Kay Ivey chose to run for the office she constitutionally stepped into following Robert Bentley’s resignation in 2017" — which had been triggered by an explosive scandal involving Bentley using government resources to further an extramarital affair.

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In 2020, Tuberville ousted Trump's former attorney general Jeff Sessions, who held the Senate seat until 2017, in a primary where Sessions was seeking his old office back, and then defeated Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who had been elected in a massive upset when Roy Moore, the Republican former state chief justice running in the special election to replace Sessions, was accused of inappropriate behavior with children. Moore went on to sue one of his accusers for defamation, but lost that case in 2022.

Since being elected, Tuberville — a steadfast supporter of President Donald Trump — has been at the center of numerous controversies.

He has questioned whether white nationalism is an inherently racist ideology, said that slavery reparations are an attempt to hand out money to "the people that do the crime," and spent months under the Biden administration blocking vital military appointments to try to force the Pentagon to stop giving female servicemembers medical leave for abortions.