Opinion Thank you, Doug Jones

A little over a year ago, I spoke with Doug Jones, and he told me that he was kicking around this crazy idea to run for governor—but only if Tommy Tuberville would be his opponent.

There was a reason behind that. Jones knew that a rematch with the controversial U.S. senator would draw national attention and national money. It would give Alabama Democrats a shot to do something that no one thought possible—regain some relevance in a blood-red state where Republicans held firm supermajorities in both houses and controlled every statewide office.

I was skeptical.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I thought Jones was by far the Dems’ best candidate for the moment and the task, but I’ve seen this play before—Democrats have a solid, reasonable plan, but party infighting and a confluence of bad occurrences trip them up. The Republicans win again.

Plus, well, that’s a whole lot of work for a person whose ultimate goal wasn’t necessarily winning but was instead party building.

Jones drew some skepticism on Wednesday when, as he conceded the governor’s race, he stated that the ultimate goal of his campaign wasn’t to win but to lay the foundation for the party. But he’s not lying. Because we had exactly that discussion. He was fine with losing, he told me, if it meant making a meaningful impact on the Alabama Democratic Party and for regular Alabamians. Oh, he would have taken a victory—and he worked his ass off to get one—but when Jones said it wasn’t the ultimate goal, he was telling the truth.

Make no mistake about it: Doug Jones won.

No, he didn’t win the governor’s race. Tommy Tuberville won that fair and square, beat Jones straight up, no doubt about it.

But there are the makings of a viable second party in Alabama right now. And that’s something we haven’t had in 20 years.

That’s what Doug Jones won.

Significant political change does not occur overnight. It happens in drips and drabs, small gain on top of small gain, subtle shifts here and there and a slow, steady increase in fundraising and organization. That’s the way it has happened everywhere—that’s how Republicans gained control of Alabama and how Democrats won over Georgia and now Texas.

It takes time and opportunity to get people to change their minds. “Democrat” has been a bad label in Alabama since the late 2000s, and Republicans here have done a very good job of heaping mud on it.

They held 20-point advantages across the state and put a stranglehold on the financial resources. Businesses don’t tend to give to long-shot candidates because it’s typically a waste of money and it ticks off the controlling party, potentially costing you even more.

That’s why getting off the mat in party politics is so, so difficult. You have to look for just the right candidates, just the right opportunities, just the right races. And then you have to get some funding.

That’s what makes Jones so important in this time. Alabama Democrats had their opportunity coming into these 2026 midterms. With a national climate running against Republicans and data centers peeling off reliable base voters, the door was opened a crack.

But no other candidate could have kicked it open. Because no one aside from Jones had the national connections and the national name recognition to raise significant money from both inside and outside of the state. That money allowed both Jones and the rest of the party to compete with Republicans.

In addition, no one else had the temperament and message that were necessary for this particular moment.

Jones could do things that not many other candidates could. He could walk into pretty much any room and hold civil conversations. He could hold his own under intense questioning at town hall meetings. He could go on TV and make his pitch. He could show up at churches—in both Black and white communities—and fit in.

He wasn’t too liberal, nor was he not liberal enough. Only the silliest of MAGAs truly tried to paint him as a liberal extremist, because, well, come on.

But even with the necessary attributes and the financial resources, Jones still needed to work like hell to make this plan viable. And it started well before the campaign. It started with recruiting a top of the ticket that carried both name recognition and real political weight. Then, there was navigating a state party that was, um, not exactly working together.

There were constant small fires and minor crises. For a period of time, Jones must have felt like he was putting out one fire only to turn around and realize someone was setting the fire truck ablaze.

(I should also point out here that the uneasy truce Jones negotiated with longtime party leader Joe Reed was perhaps the most crucial development, and Reed’s participation in that truce should not go unnoticed. Even when Reed’s favored chairman, Randy Kelley, was ousted and it was obvious that Reed had lost complete control over the ADP, he never went back on his word. Instead, he did what was in the best interest of the party and the state. For a fighter like Joe Reed, taking those losses and remaining quiet must have felt like a thousand needles. But he never wavered.)

Don’t misunderstand me—Jones didn’t do any of this alone. There were tons of invaluable people, like Representative Anthony Daniels and Senator Bobby Singleton and a whole cast of people who worked tirelessly to aid this campaign. And, of course, that conglomeration of people coming together as they did also says something about Jones.

There will be people in the coming days who insist that another candidate could have beaten Tuberville, that there was an obvious pathway there. Don’t buy that nonsense, because it ignores the struggles and early accomplishments and long hours of work that made the end what it was. Who was going to do it with no money and no name recognition and no organizing?

You should see what happened this election cycle for what it was: the first step.

Doug Jones laid the foundation for what could be a return of the Alabama Democratic Party. Not to dominance, but to relevance. And then to competitiveness. When that happens, we all win and extremism loses. That’s why it’s so important to have a two-party system. It pushes everything toward the middle and appeases the masses over the eccentric edges.

Alabama has a real shot to get there. And Doug Jones made that possible.