On Wednesday, APR spoke with Dakarai Larriett, a former corporate executive and entrepreneur who is running as a Democrat for Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s U.S. Senate seat in 2026.
Larriett was born and raised in Alabama, where he graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts before attending the University of Alabama where he received a bachelor’s degree in business and economics. Larriett then moved to New York where he entered into the corporate world, eventually landing executive-level roles at companies like Louis Vuitton and Whirlpool.
After his time in the corporate world, Larriett started his own business and became a successful entrepeneur. He is also an active member of his community, volunteering with the United Way, Meals on Wheels, and the Humane Society and leading a board of over 60 families and businesses in the Mercantile on Morris, a mixed-use development in Birmingham.
However, it was only after being unlawfully arrested by Michigan State Police in 2024 that Larriett began to consider transitioning from the private sector to public service as an elected official.
“That really is the genesis, and I know that there’s so many other issues that are important in this run, but that was the genesis because I realized that government was not working for me, and I knew that it just was not working for other people, and it was so shocking because I was proven to be 100 innocent and sober after months of pushing to receive the FOIA evidence,” Larriett told APR. “I also had the benefit of a high-priced attorney… and even had political connections to network up to [Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s] office. I still have not received justice. So, it just really made it apparent to me that the system was broken, and the only way to fix it is to change the laws.”
Larriett emphasized how this desire to pursue criminal justice reform at a national level influenced his decision to run for a U.S. Senate seat.
“It’s interesting because I was in Michigan literally packing up my house, because I was living between Alabama and Michigan [at the time of the arrest]… It just made me realize we need to change the laws on a national scale because you can be driving across the border to Georgia, and maybe the laws are different there, or maybe they’re different in Mississippi, but how do we ensure that the interactions with the police are productive and fair for everybody? That really is my ‘why,'” Larriett explained.
“It is a national issue that we’ve got to fix through laws… what I want to create is a motorist Bill of Rights that addresses all these interactions,” he added.
Not only does Larriett view his campaign as an opportunity to serve in public office, but also as a platform to highlight the issues he cares about, including police accountability.
“We know it’s very difficult for a Democrat to win a statewide office in Alabama. Not impossible, but difficult. The attention that my race has been able to garner and to drive attention to this critical issue of police accountability would not be the same if I were running for Birmingham City Council or Alabama State House, that’s a reality,” Larriett said. “The run is just as important as getting into the office. Now, taking that oath of office is the North Star, I’m committed to winning this race, but there’s a journey of two years where I get to now talk about these issues that mean so much to me and other Alabamians.”
In addition to issues of police accountability and criminal justice reform, Larriett also stressed his commitment to expanding economic opportunity and access to quality education in Alabama if elected.
“Number one is obviously economic opportunity in the state. People are falling behind, let alone not getting ahead. We know they’re not getting ahead, they’re not living better lives than their parents and grandparents did, which is really sad. They’re falling behind. They’re falling into poverty. So that is going to be one of the critical issues: how do we bring jobs to the state and entice employers?” Larriett explained. “That’s why I moved to New York [after graduating from the University of Alabama]… when I moved to New York, that’s where I started my businesses, bought my first home, all those economic and life achievements that I could have been doing here in Alabama. So, we’ve got to bring those opportunities here.”
“The other piece that I’m hearing a lot about is education and how do we improve the quality of education,” he continued. “We are currently 45 out of 50 from an educational standpoint, but it’s a mixed story. We have institutions that are exceptional — like I graduated from Alabama School of Fine Arts here in Birmingham. When I graduated, that was the seventh-best public school in the nation. We have the University of Alabama… I have friends that traveled around the world to go to Alabama and pay out-of-state tuition. But then we have other institutions that are not funded properly, and how do we raise the water level so that everyone gets a good quality basic education that then propels them for everything else they want to do in life?”
APR asked Larriett what his approach to the privatization of education would be if elected, given Alabama’s recent expansion of the CHOOSE Act program and the Trump administration’s emphasis on defunding public schools at the national level. Such ‘school choice’ policies have faced heavy criticism from organizations like Alabama Arise for depriving public schools of much-needed funds without actually improving educational outcomes.
“The most important thing to me is that we don’t leave folks behind who choose not to leave their local school system or are not able to, for example, go into private school or other types of school choice institutions,” Larriett replied. “When I think about my personal experience, my mom was a teacher for 35 years, a public teacher. She identified that the schools in our neighborhood in central Birmingham were not the best, and because she knew the schools intrinsically, being a teacher, she got me into magnet schools like W.J. Christian, Alabama School of Fine Arts, and that set me up for [the University of Alabama], and then I earned my masters from NYU. I wouldn’t be talking to you today had I gone to my local schools.”
“So I believe in giving families and children the opportunity to choose the right institution for them, but we also have to, at the very same time, make sure that we’re funding those local schools and ensuring that they meet minimum standards,” he added. “My goal is really to get to the point where folks are like, ‘I want to send my kids to the school that’s two blocks away. It’s a great institution, and it’s 2 blocks away.'”
In addition to increasing economic and educational opportunity for Alabamians, Larriett highlighted healthcare as a major policy focus of his campaign.
“The final piece really is healthcare… Alabama is in those 40’s again when it comes to health outcomes, but why is that the case? We have such amazing technology and institutions like UAB, where I happened to have been born. So for me it’s really about distributing the best of Alabama throughout the state and ensuring that everyone gets a fair chance at being healthy, productive, and successful,” Larriett said.
Larriett added that he wants others to be “able to enjoy the best of Alabama” the same way he was.
“I was born in UAB, I went to [the University of Alabama], I went to Alabama School of Fine Arts, I know that we can do better by all Alabamians and I want everyone to have that chance,” Larriett said.
“Even before Senator Tuberville decided to run for governor, I knew that 2026 was going to be a pivotal year. It would be an opportunity for all people, not even on party lines, all people to say, ‘this is not the country that I want to live in and I don’t want to leave it for my children,’ and I started feeling that at the end of last year, frankly,” he continued. “And just the anger from my false arrest, and the fact that I still have not gotten justice from it, and the policies that I was hearing espoused around expanding qualified immunity, which we saw happen here in Alabama with HB202. I knew that it was time to jump in officially and to advocate for the policies that I believe in and to demand a seat at the table.”
Lastly, Larriett stressed his desire to prioritize issues, not partisanship, with his candidacy, and emphasized his willingness to compromise and reach across the political aisle on some issues.
“The thrust of this campaign is about improving the lives of all Alabamians. And what you’re going to see over the next year and a half is this is not about partisanship. If you were to go to my campaign website, you would see I don’t even mention the words Republican or Democrat. It’s really about the principles and always thinking about improving the lives of Alabamians,” Larriett said. “You just mentioned a little bit earlier school choice, I think that’s a huge opportunity [for bipartisanship]. School choice has actually improved some critical rankings here in the state, so we’ve got to think outside of the box… and think outside of political lines if we want to see the state improve. And I think that we can do that together if we work in a collaborative way and stop being partisan.”
