U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville is expected to announce today that he will run for governor of Alabama, ending months of speculation about his political future.

The senator, who has said for months he is considering a run for governor instead of seeking a second term in the Senate, has told the Associated Press he intends to announce a decision today.

No Republican candidates have announced for next year’s primary, which is May 19, 2026.

If elected, Tuberville will succeed Gov. Kay Ivey, who will have been governor just a few months shy of a decade when her term ends in January 2027.

Any Republican who decides to challenge Tuberville will likely have a hard time beating the first term senator, political experts say.

Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, once considered a frontrunner, announced last week that he will not run for governor.

Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate he would not run for governor when he learned Tuberville was likely to run, saying only Nick Saban could beat Tuberville.

If Tuberville runs for governor his senate seat will also be an open race in 2026.

From coach to senator

Tuberville, 70, and his wife Suzanne have two adult sons, Tucker and Troy.

Prior to entering politics, he was head football coach at Auburn from 1999 to 2008.

Tuberville compiled a 159-99 record in 21 seasons as a head coach, including 14 in the SEC.

He guided the Tigers to an 85-40 record over 10 seasons. Auburn went 13-0 under Tuberville in 2004, including a 38-28 victory over Tennessee in the SEC Championship Game.

Tuberville led a seven-candidate field in the 2020 Republican Senate primary.

After picking up an endorsement from President Donald Trump, Tuberville decisively defeated Jeff Sessions in the GOP runoff, receiving 61% of the vote.

Sessions was trying to regain the seat he held for 20 years before leaving it to accept Trump’s appointment as attorney general before an ugly falling out.

Tuberville then easily defeated Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in the November 2020 general election.

Since his election, Tuberville has been one of Trump’s fiercest advocates.

Devotion to Trump has become essential for successful GOP campaigns in Alabama, Brown said.

“We’ve seen all the candidates for major office, almost all of them, have to go out and declare themselves as loyal Trumpians,” said Jess Brown, former political science professor at Athens State University and a longtime observer of elections.

“And I can’t see anybody who’s going to be able to run in a Republican primary for governor who’s going to be able to have a record of being more Trumpian than Senator Tuberville.”

Challenges ahead?

Despite his support for Trump, Tuberville has gone against his own party at times and found himself in the center of national controversies.

He stalled military promotions for 10 months in 2023 over a Pentagon policy covering travel costs for service members and their dependents who must cross state lines to receive abortions.

The Government Accountability Office recently found the hold affected some military families but did not create a risk to national security or military readiness.

In 2022, while speaking at a Trump rally in Nevada, Tuberville said Democrats “want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”

Tuberville later said via a spokesperson he meant that “the issue is crime, not race, but the liberal media is intent on helping Democrats remain in power.”

Questions have been raised about Tuberville’s stock trades while in the U.S. Senate.

Tuberville trades more than his 99 Senate colleagues. That’s according to Unusual Whales, a startup that helps investors track market activity. He also trails just a small number of House members.

And the timing of some of his trades, and his holdings of some agricultural commodities and foreign stocks, have raised questions and sparked headlines.

For example, financial trade publications have called out Tuberville’s “suspicious” Apple stock trade ahead of a market downturn for the tech company in early April.

There are also questions as to whether Tuberville meets the seven-year residency requirement to be governor.

AL.com reported in April that Tuberville and his wife still have two homes in Santa Rosa, including a beach house valued at more than $5 million. The senator claims a homestead exemption on a home in Auburn.

Brown said Republican voters in the governor’s race will probably not care.

Even if there is a legal challenge, Brown said the Alabama Supreme Court – nine Republican justices – would have the last word.

“I think it’s going to be difficult to keep him off the ballot with the residency question,” Brown said.

And if his name is on the ballot, Tuberville will likely be unbeatable, experts say.

“Even though it’s a year out, I cannot see a major opponent to him in the Republican primary,” former GOP chairman and state senator Bill Armistead said.

“Certainly not in the general election.”

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information is available.