The 2020 United States Senate election in Alabama was held on November 3, 2020, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the state of Alabama, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states, elections to the United States House of Representatives, and various state and local elections.
Incumbent senator Doug Jones, first elected in a 2017 special election in what was widely labeled a major upset, ran for a full term, facing Tommy Tuberville in the general election. This race was one of two Democratic-held U.S. Senate seats up for election in 2020 in a state President Trump won in 2016. Jones was widely considered the most vulnerable senator among those seeking re-election in 2020 due to Alabama's heavy Republican lean, with analysts predicting a Republican pickup; Jones's 2017 win was in part due to sexual misconduct allegations against his Republican opponent Roy Moore.
As was predicted, Tuberville easily defeated Jones, whose 20.36% margin of defeat was the largest for an incumbent U.S. Senator since Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln in 2010. Tuberville received the highest percentage of the vote for any challenger since Joseph D. Tydings in 1964. Jones became the first Democratic senator to lose a general election in Alabama, and the only Democratic senator to be defeated in 2020. He outperformed Biden in the state by about 5 points. This was the only Republican flip of the 2020 U.S. Senate elections.
Democratic primary
The candidate filing deadline was November 8, 2019. Jones ran unopposed.
Candidates
Nominee
- Doug Jones, incumbent U.S. senator
Declined
- John Rogers, state representative
- Randall Woodfin, mayor of Birmingham (endorsed Jones)
Endorsements
Republican primary
Candidates
Nominee
- Tommy Tuberville, former Auburn Tigers football head coach
Eliminated in runoff
- Jeff Sessions, former United States attorney general, former holder of this seat, and former attorney general of Alabama
Eliminated in primary
- Stanley Adair, businessman
- Bradley Byrne, incumbent U.S. representative for Alabama's 1st congressional district
- Arnold Mooney, state representative
- Roy Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, former candidate for Governor of Alabama in 2006 and 2010 and nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2017
- Ruth Page Nelson, community activist
Withdrew
- Marty Preston Hatley
- John Merrill, Secretary of State of Alabama
- John Paul Serbin
Declined
- Robert Aderholt, incumbent U.S. representative for Alabama's 4th congressional district
- Will Ainsworth, Alabama lieutenant governor
- Mo Brooks, incumbent U.S. representative for Alabama's 5th congressional district and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2017
- Will Dismukes, state representative
- Matt Gaetz, incumbent U.S. representative for Florida's 1st congressional district
- Del Marsh, president pro tempore of the Alabama Senate
- Arthur Orr, state senator (endorsed Byrne)
- Martha Roby, incumbent U.S. representative for Alabama's 2nd congressional district
- Heather Whitestone, former Miss America
Endorsements
First round
Polling
Primary results
Runoff
The runoff for the Republican Senate nomination was planned for March 31, 2020, but it was delayed until July 14 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Polling
Results
Independents
Candidates
Withdrawn
- Mike Parrish
- Jarmal Sanders, reverend
- Marcus Jejaun Williams
General election
Predictions
Post-primary endorsements
Polling
Results
By county
By congressional district
Tuberville won 6 of 7 congressional districts.
Analysis
The result was a landslide victory for Tuberville. Tuberville's 20-point margin of victory is largely attributed to the presence of Donald Trump on the ballot, and Jones' votes against Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, as well as his vote to convict Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial. Jones was widely considered the most vulnerable senator in 2020, and his victory in 2017 was largely attributed to allegations of child molestation against his opponent. While Jones was able to receive more raw votes than he did in 2017, Tuberville received nearly double the number of votes Roy Moore did in 2017, largely due to the high Republican turnout. Jones did perform well in Jefferson County and Montgomery County, but still vastly underperformed his margins in 2017, while Tuberville easily won the rural areas, and successfully flipped many counties that went to Jones by significant margins.
In the 2017 election, Jones won several traditionally Republican counties while also driving up margins and turnout in traditionally Democratic counties: he added onto massive margins in Birmingham and Montgomery with narrow wins in the state's other, previously more conservative metropolitan areas, such as Huntsville, Mobile, Tuscaloosa and Auburn-Opelika, alongside several other small counties encircling the Black Belt. Jones' win, though attributable to a spike in Democratic turnout and a decline in Republican turnout, was primarily reliant on sexual misconduct allegations against Moore, resulting in several prominent Republicans rescinding their endorsements. With Tuberville lacking such controversies, the state swung hard into the Republican column in 2020, and he flipped 12 counties Jones won in 2017. Jones only won the 13 counties won by Joe Biden in the concurrent 2020 presidential election, and his victories in Jefferson County (Birmingham) and Montgomery County (Montgomery) were insufficient to overcome Tuberville's performance in the rest of the state.
Notes
Partisan clients and other notes
Voter samples
References
Further reading
- Amber Phillips (October 9, 2020). "The Senate seats most likely to flip parties in November". Washingtonpost.com.
External links
- Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association. "Alabama". Voting & Elections Toolkits.
- "Alabama: Election Tools, Deadlines, Dates, Rules, and Links". Vote.org. Oakland, CA.
- "League of Women Voters of Alabama". (state affiliate of the U.S. League of Women Voters)
- Alabama at Ballotpedia
Official campaign websites
- Doug Jones (D) for Senate
- Tommy Tuberville (R) for Senate
