Former Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, who served three years in Congress after scoring an upset victory in a special election, announced on Monday that he would run for governor next year.
Mr. Jones stunned the nation in 2017 when he defeated Roy S. Moore, an embattled Republican who at the time faced accusations of sexually assaulting and pursuing teenage girls. Mr. Jones was the first Democrat to win statewide office since 2008 and the first to win a Senate seat in decades.
His announcement sets up a possible rematch with Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican and former Auburn University football coach who beat Mr. Jones in 2020 by about 20 points and announced his own candidacy for governor in May.
“We’re going to do everything we can to bring the people back to the state capital of Montgomery, Ala. As your governor, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Mr. Jones said in a video officially announcing his candidacy. He said it was confirmation of “the worst kept secret in the state of Alabama.”
Republicans are widely favored to retain control of the governor’s office because of Alabama’s deeply conservative electorate. Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican who took office in 2017, cannot run again because of term limits.
“Last time Doug Jones ran against Coach Tuberville, it didn’t go well for Doug,” Mallory Jaspers, a spokeswoman for Mr. Tuberville, wrote on social media earlier on Monday, ahead of Mr. Jones’s official announcement. “Coach has spent the past six months building coalitions across the state, securing endorsements from every key player in Alabama politics, and shattering fundraising records.”
While a few other candidates have announced plans to run, Mr. Jones and Mr. Tuberville easily have the strongest name recognition in the field. Mr. Tuberville, a reliable ally of President Trump, has not shied away from political conflict. He voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and blocked military promotions for nearly a year during the Biden administration in protest of a Pentagon policy that ensured abortion access for service members.
Mr. Jones signaled he would emphasize questions about Mr. Tuberville’s residency, which have dogged him since his Senate run and have begun to resurface. Mr. Tuberville owns property in the Florida Panhandle, while his family members own the home in Alabama that he lists as his residence.
Residency requirements are tougher for a governor than for a United States senator.
Before running for Senate in 2017, Mr. Jones was known for his work as a federal prosecutor. In that job, he reopened and prosecuted the case against two members of the Ku Klux Klan who were involved in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed four young Black girls.
As a senator, Mr. Jones set out to prove his willingness to work with Republicans, including Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, a veteran conservative who was a senator then. But Mr. Jones was often comfortable bucking conventional political wisdom about how to survive as a red-state Democrat.
He voted to convict Mr. Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress during the impeachment trial in early 2020, criticized Alabama’s abortion laws, and declined to meet with or vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett, Mr. Trump’s most recent pick for the Supreme Court. It was an approach that most likely helped lead to his defeat.
After Mr. Tuberville defeated him in 2020, Mr. Jones returned to the private sector. He was said to have been on President Joseph R. Biden Jr,.’s short list for attorney general — a position that instead went to Merrick Garland — and was tapped to help guide Ketanji Brown Jackson through the confirmation process to the Supreme Court.
Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville.
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