MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Two days after making his bid for Alabama governor official, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville sat down with Alabama Daily News’ Todd Stacy on Alabama Public Television’s Capitol Journal to speak on his campaign for the state’s highest office, laying out his vision for boosting manufacturing jobs and shrinking state government.
“I understand being in a position of authority, and the buck stops with the governor, because you’re the head coach, and if you’re not winning, the head coach should get the blame,” Tuberville said.
“I’m a CEO. I’m not going to go in there and micromanage everything in the state, I’m going to give out authority to people that can do certain things, but we’re going to drop regulations, we’re going to give people better opportunities to build, to grow, we’re going to stop crime.”
Capitol Journal airs Friday nights at 7:30 and Sundays at 12:00 noon on Alabama Public Television. It is also available on Capitol Journal’s YouTube channel.
The former Auburn football coach has represented Alabama as one of its two senators since 2021. Asked about why he is giving up a coveted Senate seat to run for governor, Tuberville said that he had first entertained a run for governor after stepping away from coaching in 2016, but decided to run for the U.S. Senate after Gov. Kay Ivey ascended to the position following the resignation of Gov. Robert Bentley.
Now, after four years in Washington, D.C., as well as his more than two decades coaching college football, Tuberville says he’s ready to bring that experience to Alabama’s highest office.
“In this business, it’s not about offense, defense and special teams, it’s about education, health care, pensions, labor, military, there are so many things you have to keep up with,” he said.
“I’ve learned a lot, met a lot of great people in D.C., got a lot of connections. I think that’s going to help me being governor because I know everybody all the way down from President Trump to good friends of Rubio and J.D. Vance.”
Tuberville has long been considered among President Donald Trump’s closest allies, having fiercely supported and defended the president throughout his legal challenges over the past several years.
As such, Tuberville has pledged to pursue a Trump-aligned agenda as governor, starting with mirroring efforts at the federal level to reduce the size of government and roll back regulations.
“People in this state are pro-Trump; the bureaucracy in Alabama is not. Montgomery is not quite pro-Trump. People say that they’re with President Trump, but saying things and doing things are different,” he said.
“We have got to understand that our government’s getting too big – it’s not near, obviously, as big as the federal government – but we can cut back, we can consolidate. We’re not going to stay the same, we’re going to change Alabama, we’re going to change it for the better, we’re going to save taxpayers’ money, we’re going to grow the state.”
On growing Alabama’s economy, Tuberville stressed two priorities: further cutting taxes, and boosting manufacturing jobs.
Alabama is routinely ranked as among the least-taxed states in the nation, particularly its property tax, the lowest in the nation second only to Hawaii. Still, Tuberville called for further tax cuts, calling it a key driver of economic growth and development.
“Look at Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, everybody around us, they’re dropping taxes and they’re growing,” he said. “President Trump told me this, he said ‘we’re going to grow the country; you’ve got to grow your state,’ and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Another topic discussed was one of residency. Questions surrounding Tuberville’s residency have grown over the past several weeks as he mulled a run for governor, with the senator owning two properties in Florida, properties that some have alleged to be his main residence, thereby making him ineligible for the position of governor.
And while some Alabama Democrat leaders have moved forward with challenging Tuberville’s state residency in his run for governor, tax records obtained by ADN have shown the senator’s home in Auburn has had a homestead exemption applied to it since 2018.
Tuberville said that he’d lived most of the last 25 years in Alabama, and that he wasn’t concerned with challenges to his residency.
“My wife bought a house in Florida in 2000, we’ve had that thing for 25 years. We go down there some, not very much. I spend most of my time in D.C. or in Alabama working,” he said. “I’m not concerned about it. You have some of these entities in our state, they’re Democrat strongholds that just want to do everything possible to keep me from running.”
Within 24 hours of announcing his bid for governor, Tuberville revealed that his campaign received more than $2 million in contributions, something he attributed to the support for his campaign from regular Alabamians.
“I raised more money in the first 24 hours than I’ve raised in two years in the United States Senate, and it didn’t come from lobbyists, it didn’t come from the big entities in the state, it came from individuals,” he said. “People want change, they want something different and they’re going to get it.”
THANK YOU for all your support!
This is just the beginning of our fight to put Alabama first. pic.twitter.com/EyX51h8rx0
— Tommy Tuberville (@CoachForGov) May 28, 2025
Tuberville was asked how he might govern as it relates to certain policy initiatives, things like gambling legalization, which was tacitly supported by Ivey. He suggested that his key focus would be on shrinking government, reducing regulation and increasing manufacturing jobs, and would largely leave specific issues like gambling or marijuana legalization up to state lawmakers.
“The governor shouldn’t have anything to say with that,” Tuberville said. “I’m one vote, the people vote that in, I don’t have anything to do with that, (so) the Legislature has got to make their mind up of the direction they want to go and what they want to do.”
With his bid for governor, Tuberville will now leave an open Senate seat behind, which is expected to draw considerable attention and prospective candidates, which already includes Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who announced his Senate bid on Thursday.
To the Senate hopefuls in Alabama, Tuberville also shared some advice.
“Just understand what you’re getting into,” he said.
“You’re a team player; you don’t build anything, you don’t put anything together, you just help on other things and try to work for your state from behind the scenes with your fellow Senator Katie Britt. There’s a lot of good people (that are) going to run for it; President Trump asked me what I thought, and I told him I’m not going to get involved, but I will vote for somebody, somebody that’s going to support President Trump.”
Watch the full interview Friday at 7:30 on Alabama Public Television.