One major potential contender for Alabama governor announced Tuesday he won’t run to replace the term limited Gov. Kay Ivey, but several other possible candidates remain.

While Alabama voters will head to the polls in November 2026 to choose Ivey’s successor, the race will begin to heat up in 2025.

The primary elections for governor will be held May 25, 2025, meaning candidates will start making their announcements in the beginning of the year.

And without an incumbent to challenge, the race could be wide open.

Steve Marshall, the term limited Alabama attorney general once believed to be among the top candidates for governor, said Tuesday he is “definitely not running,” although he declined to shut the door on running for another office.

Marshall is not the only statewide elected official precluded from running for reelection due to term limits; others, however, remain potential gubernatorial candidates.

Those officeholders are joined by three familiar faces to statewide politics in rounding out a list of Republicans who might run for governor in 2026:

Will Ainsworth

Ainsworth tops the list both alphabetically — as this list is organized — and in viability.

The lieutenant governor will be term limited from seeking election to a third term in 2026.

He has used his office as a bully pulpit to raise his profile, including calling for President Biden’s impeachment, slamming the president’s pardon of Hunter Biden and blaming the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on the “rhetoric of the radical left.”

In an AL.com interview in August, Ainsworth wasn’t coy about his gubernatorial ambitions.

“The only position I’d have an interest in running for when my time is up, and I am term-limited, would be governor,” he said.

“And so, I’ll either run for governor or go back to the private sector. I imagine I will make a decision on that sometime [around] the beginning of [2025], probably February or March, something like that, about what I’m going to do.”

“So it would be in May [2025] when the campaign would start,” Ainsworth said. “But right now, just focused on doing my job as lieutenant governor, and then try to make a decision with the family on if we want to run for governor or not sometime the first part of next year.”

Kent Davis

Davis, the former commissioner of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, said Tuesday he is considering a run for governor or perhaps another statewide office. Davis said the idea started a few weeks ago after an op-ed piece in 1819 News suggesting he run for governor.

Davis said an informal exploratory group has been encouraging him to run.

“I think the bottom line is, I’m strongly considering it, statewide office, whether that be governor or something else,” Davis said. “And it’s mainly because in the last few weeks, people have been reaching out to me left and right.”

Davis, 62, is a Montgomery native and retired Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy. He was commissioner of the ADVA from 2019 until a dispute with Gov. Kay Ivey came to a head in October.

Ivey asked the ADVA Board to fire Davis but the board declined to do so. Ivey then removed Davis by executive authority.

Davis said he believes he still has a strong reputation among veterans and the military in Alabama. Davis spent 16 years as an attorney and is the former city manager of Anniston.

“I feel like I understand this state and I’d put my resume up against just about anybody,” Davis said.

John Merrill

Merrill, the former Alabama secretary of state for two terms who also served as a state representative, is another possible contender for governor.

“I have not decided what I’m going to do yet for the 2026 cycle,” Merrill told AL.com on Tuesday. “I am sure we will make a decision sometime during the first quarter of 2025.”

Alabama’s former chief election official was marred by scandal at the end of his second term when he acknowledged he had an “inappropriate relationship” with a woman for three years and announced he would not be a candidate for any elected offices in 2022.

Merrill went on to join Waggoner Engineering as the director of public policy and strategic markets for Alabama.

Rick Pate

Pate, the state agriculture commissioner, is term limited from seeking another, leading to speculation that he may run for governor.

“I’m not ruling it out, but [my wife] Julie and I have to sit down and have that conversation,” Pate told Alabama Daily News in an article published in May.

He suggested he was focused on his job as agriculture commissioner instead of his next political move.

“I want to be the best ag commissioner Alabama’s ever had and I don’t think I’ve completely done that yet,” Pate said. “That’s my goal. And we have time to think about” the future.

Before his tenure as agriculture commissioner, Pate was a town councilor and mayor of Lowndesboro, a farmer and businessman.

He founded Pate Landscape Co. in 1982.

Tommy Tuberville

Alabama’s senior senator could be pulling a shrewd political move by running for governor instead of reelection to the Senate and have his potential rivals for the governor’s mansion make a mad dash for his Senate seat, according to former Alabama state representative and political pundit Steve Flowers.

“[I]n the past month or so, a name has surfaced in the 2026 governor’s race that will turn the tide and change the landscape of the race. Coach Tommy Tuberville is rumored to be considering a run for governor in 2026,” Flowers wrote in a column published Nov. 13.

“His U.S. Senate seat is also up for election in 2026. He got to the Senate at age 65, which is not the best age to arrive in the U.S. Senate and attain any power under the seniority system. He is 70 and looking at another six-year term as a 70ish back-bencher,” Flowers wrote.

“He has his detractors, but polling reveals he is very popular in Alabama. He has over 75% name identification with high positives,” Flowers said, while Ainsworth and Pate are only known by one in five Alabama voters.

Tuberville would “automatically become the favorite” for governor, according to Flowers, while possible gubernatorial contenders like Ainsworth run for Senate instead.

For what it’s worth, Tuberville was quoted the day before Flowers’ column published that he would seek a second term to the Senate.

“Yeah, I’m running. Yeah, I’m getting on up there. I don’t know how many more times I’ll run, but I enjoy it,” Tuberville told CNN’s Manu Raju, adding that the incoming Republican Senate majority makes his job more appealing.

“I want to find out what it’s like to be in the majority,” he said. “When you’re in the minority, you just get kicked in the mouth every day, you know. And we’ve been kind of sat on the back bench. Now it’s time to take over, see what can be done with President Trump.”

Efforts by AL.com to reach Tuberville were unsuccessful.