Longtime college football coach Tommy Tuberville won Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday night, defeating incumbent Democratic Senator Doug Jones, according to multiple media sources.
Tuberville entered Tuesday’s election with a significant lead in pre-election polling and David Mowery, chairman of the Alabama-based Mowery Consulting Group, told Yahoo Sports that a possible Tuberville loss on Election Day would have been like “Troy beating LSU.”
Prior to entering U.S. politics, Tuberville spent 21 combined years as the head coach at Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati. He has a 159–99 record, having last coached in 2016.
The 66-year-old Tuberville was twice named the SEC Coach of the Year and was the AP Coach of the Year in 2004 when he coached Auburn to a 13–0 season, which ended in a Sugar Bowl win.
Tuberville announced he was running for the U.S. Senate in April 2019 and finished first in the state’s Republican primary, ahead of former U.S. Senator and former attorney general Jeff Sessions.
Tuberville will join Republican Richard Shelby, who is Alabama’s senior U.S. Senator, in the senate.