Tommy Tuberville's own words could get him disqualified from Alabama governor's race

A new Alabama lawsuit seeks to knock U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville off the November ballot for governor, using his own words against him.

The complaint, filed Tuesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court by Brooke Lynn Dorgan and Justin Jude LeBlanc — two Alabama military veterans — invokes Alabama's quo warranto statutes, a legal mechanism used to challenge whether someone is entitled to hold public office, and names Tuberville and Alabama Secretary of State Wesley Harrison Allen as defendants.

Legal analyst Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney, highlighted the filing on X and called out one of its most striking passages.

"'At a meeting of the Shoals Republican Club on August 3, 2019, Tuberville candidly conceded that he 'has property' in Alabama but is not an 'everyday resident of Alabama,' describing himself as a 'carpetbagger,'" Vance wrote.

That admission is corroborated by contemporaneous reporting from Yellowhammer News, which quoted Tuberville saying, "Yes, I'm not an everyday resident of Alabama."

The lawsuit centers on the Alabama Constitution's requirement that candidates for governor must have been "resident citizens of this state at least seven years" before the election — meaning, according to AL.com, Tuberville needed to be a genuine Alabama resident by Nov. 3, 2019.

The complaint also claims his family refers to the Auburn property as "The Game Day House" because he is only there during athletic events.

Property tax records show Tuberville and his wife own a Florida beach home valued at $5.6 million. His campaign points to a 1,551-square-foot Auburn property as his residence. Voting records show he cast his ballot in Florida in November 2018.

Prior suits were dismissed on judicial grounds because Tuberville was not yet his party's official nominee. Now that he is, the Alabama Reflector reported, a Montgomery County judge — not a partisan committee — has jurisdiction.

"This entire witch-hunt could have been avoided if the media and Democrats had just asked a few of our neighbors," Tuberville said after the Republican Party dismissed a separate challenge on June 14. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the new filing, and Tuberville has not yet filed a response in court.

Tuberville faces former Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones in the November 3 gubernatorial election.