Marathon Senate campaign for the history books ends with Tuberville win
Published 12:34 pm Friday, November 20, 2020
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By PAUL DEMARCO / Guest Columnist
Note: This is an opinion column.
With Tommy Tuberville’s election to the United States Senate, this has been one of the most interesting political stories in Alabama history.
It all started with Jeff Sessions’ appointment by President Donald Trump to serve as the United States Attorney General. With his Senate seat vacated, then Gov. Robert Bentley appointed then Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange to the seat. However, Strange’s time in the seat was short as he ultimately lost the Republican nomination for the special election to Judge Roy Moore.
After the controversial election in December 2017 that led to the election of Democrat Doug Jones to represent Alabama in the Senate, Republicans immediately began to line up to challenge Jones for the seat.
After a competitive primary, Tuberville was the Republican nominee that then beat Jones and put the seat back in Republican control.
With Jones’ votes to impeach Donald Trump and against Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, there was no question he was out of sync with the Alabama voters. You can count on Tuberville’s votes to more closely align with Alabama voters.
And while this election is now behind us, if Sen. Richard Shelby does not run for reelection in two years, we may have another wild race for the Senate ahead of us. In the meantime, now both Senate Alabama Senate seats are back in the hands of Republicans for the foreseeable future.
Paul DeMarco is a former member of the Alabama House of Representatives.