If you’d like to be the governor of Alabama, here’s your chance.
On Wednesday, Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth announced that he would not be seeking the office that everyone assumed he was going to be seeking since basically the day he walked into the State House. Instead, Ainsworth is giving in to Tommy Tuberville, who will undoubtedly announce in the coming days his candidacy to govern a state in which he does not live.
Swell.
Ainsworth didn’t believe he could beat Tuberville. Polling has fairly consistently shown that Alabama’s current U.S. senator holds a big advantage over Ainsworth, and everyone else, when it comes to name ID in the state. Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate made the same decision several weeks ago, as well, also after seeing similar polling.
It’s fairly depressing, to say the least, that two of the state’s top politicians believe that Alabama voters are so shallow that simply knowing a person’s name is enough to catapult them to victory. But then, considering that those same voters continue to re-elect state lawmakers that they consistently say they hate – and do so, one would assume, based solely on the fact that they know their names – maybe it’s not a bad bet.
However, in this particular case, I’d take that bet.
I’ve seen the polls. I know the numbers. And here’s the bottom line: it’s a wide open race, if you’ve got the stomach to fight it.
Now, before I dig into my opinions here and talk about the opportunity that sits out there for someone, let me be crystal clear: I mean it’s wide open for Republicans.
I would love for there to be a chance for a Democrat. But outside of a residency challenge – which would undoubtedly fall victim to partisan politics (the state Legislature makes the final ruling in such cases) and never succeed – no Democrat has a shot. That’s just the sad reality at this point.
That’s not to say that the Democrats aren’t becoming better organized and better positioned to make down-ballot gains. They are. And if Tuberville is at the top of the Republican ticket, I think it speeds that process along significantly.
The bad news is that I don’t know that he will be, and it’s for the same reason he’s good for Democrats.
Every kind of moderate dislikes him.
When this race starts, the GOP frontrunner for governor will, hands down, be the most unpopular frontrunner in modern history, possibly ever. Because there is no middle ground with Tuberville.
Everyone knows him. They either like him or they don’t. And no one – absolutely no one – is on the fence about him.
I have seen polling that puts his overall unfavorables as high as the mid-50-percent range. For a campaign that hasn’t started, that’s astronomical. And it gives a lesser known candidate a real shot to strategically use those unfavorables to chop away at the name ID advantage.
It also means Tuberville, should he get a decent challenger, is going to have to work. He’s going to have to get out on the campaign trail and convince people that he’s not whatever negative things his opponent is saying. I have serious doubts that he’s committed enough to this to do it.
Maybe I’m wrong, but this whole thing has a real “eh, let’s give it a shot” feel to it. And that opens the door to a determined, working candidate.
I don’t think it has to be a terribly well known candidate, either. A Robert Bentley-type could do it. No, not the guy who was grabbing breasts and icking people out at the end, but the unknown, self-funded, relatable conservative who came out of nowhere when a couple of other frontrunners were for sure going to be governor. A candidate like that would be trouble for a frontrunner who has a fairly large base of detractors.
And let’s also not rule out the weirdness factor. Alabama politics, and governor’s races in particular, are fairly well known for veering off onto unexpected and weird paths, often determined by hairbrained decisions and insane swings in momentum. And you never know what sort of small, seemingly insignificant act is going to turn the tide.
All of it adds up to a wide open race, despite one candidate’s significant name ID advantage and his solid polling numbers with the ultra conservatives. There’s a much larger group of less insane voters out there – people who aren’t sitting around watching Newsmax, who value a candidate who will take the job seriously and who want to see a candidate that values the working class.
The door is open. The question is whether there’s a Republican left in this state willing to walk through it and take up the fight.
