Former Sen. Doug Jones is singing from the same hymn sheet as national Democrats on healthcare as he eyes a rematch against Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), this time for the governor’s mansion in Alabama.
Jones, the rare Democrat to win statewide in Alabama, has made healthcare a centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign, promising an executive order to expand Medicaid in Alabama and pillorying Tuberville, his 2020 rival for Senate, for voting against enhanced Obamacare subsidies that lapsed in December.
With that messaging, Jones is capitalizing on what has become a midterm election rallying cry for congressional Democrats, who believe they can regain a foothold in Washington by making 2026 a referendum on the rising cost of insurance premiums.
Yet the elements of a healthcare-focused message were already in the offing for Jones before he launched his campaign in December. The medical system in Alabama is under growing financial strain, with dozens of rural hospitals at risk of closing. Alabama is also just one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act due to opposition from Republicans in Montgomery, the state capital.
“We’re a poor state, we’ve got hospitals closing, we’ve got doctors leaving, we’ve got nurses leaving, and it’s going to cause an effect not only on the health of the people in the state and the children, but it’s also going to affect our economy,” Jones said in an interview. “So, that’s going to be a big issue.”
It’s a playbook Jones deployed successfully in 2017, when he became the first Democrat to represent Alabama in the Senate in 25 years. He pledged to protect Obamacare, at the time under threat of repeal, and attempted to make federal funding for children’s healthcare a flashpoint.
But Jones was also running against a particularly weak Republican accused of sexually assaulting minors, and he lost handily to Tuberville, a popular ex-football coach, three years later despite a similar focus on Medicaid expansion, the ACA, and healthcare access.
In the interview, Jones blamed the coronavirus pandemic for restricting his ability to campaign in 2020 and said that the incendiary comments Tuberville has made since taking office will weigh down his candidacy.
Jones is also betting that Tuberville’s own legislative record will be a liability, in particular his vote against the enhanced Obamacare subsidies in December, which are estimated to affect more than 100,000 people in Alabama. Jones also mentioned what he called Trump’s “anything but beautiful bill,” joining the chorus of Democrats criticizing its reforms to Medicaid.
“He can’t hide the way he hid from view in 2020,” Jones said of Tuberville. “And that was in part COVID, but it was also in part because his folks just didn’t want him to talk about the issues.”
“Now, he has taken votes — he has been in the media,” Jones added.
Asked about the attacks, Tuberville said that he opposed the Obamacare vote, a three-year extension of enhanced subsidies, because of concerns over fraud, and that with the right guardrails, he might be in favor of the legislation.
A deal is nowhere close to becoming law, but Senate Republicans are negotiating a possible compromise that would resurrect the subsidies with those guardrails and new income limits.
In terms of his opposition to Medicaid expansion, Tuberville again cited fraud, claiming that Jones wants to provide benefits for illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants are generally not eligible for welfare programs, but Trump’s tax law took steps to narrow eligibility further for noncitizens.
“He wants to pay for fraud and for all the illegals. He wants to do that,” Tuberville said. “It needs to come out of his pocket. He doesn’t need to charge the American taxpayer, and that’s exactly what’s happening.”
Jones must first advance to the general election if he hopes to challenge Tuberville in November, with Alabama primaries set for May. But he is clearly preparing for a rematch at the outset of his campaign, as both men face only nominal challenges so far.
“It’s going to be a very, very different race between two people that may have challenged each other five years ago, six years ago coming up, but those people are now in a much better position to make a real race out of this,” Jones said.
He’s also blending problems that are particular to Alabama, including a high maternal mortality rate, with criticism of the Trump administration. In a stump speech launching his campaign in December, Jones claimed that the White House is “placing our health at risk” with executive actions that “cast aside” science.
Jones isn’t entirely focused on healthcare in his rematch bid. He said that Alabama sticks out like a “sore thumb” when it comes to the Powerball and that it should follow in the footsteps of neighboring states and raise money with a lottery of its own.
“There are people streaming over to Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, to buy Powerball tickets,” Jones said.
He also named raising Alabama’s workforce participation rate, one of the lowest in the nation, as a priority.
Still, Jones believes the issue of healthcare fits neatly into Democrats’ broader focus on affordability and that Trump can be successfully pinned with the rising cost of insurance premiums.
Nationally, Democrats have paired their healthcare attacks with a critique that Trump now owns the stubbornly high inflation that began under President Joe Biden and that his administration is exacerbating it with tariffs.
“I think, like everywhere else, affordability is going to be an issue. Power rates will be an issue. I think markets for farmers, how the tariffs are affecting folks, will be big issues,” Jones said.
“You know, Alabama, in many ways, is very similar to a lot of other states. People are feeling the pain, they’re feeling some concern, and I think that those are all going to be issues,” he added.
Jones conceded that his fight over Medicaid is basically symbolic. Even if he won the governor’s mansion — a big “if” in a state Trump won by 30 points in 2024 — the GOP-controlled legislature is unlikely to fund an expansion of eligibility.
Still, his promise of an executive order represents one way in which Jones hopes to use the office as a bully pulpit, telling the Washington Examiner that he wants to put Montgomery lawmakers “on the spot” and “make them absolutely vote against it.”
“Right now, they’ve never, ever, to my knowledge, really ever taken a vote. They’ve never taken a stand,” Jones said. “They’ve always mouthed the words, ‘Yeah, we kind of support it. We just can’t pay’ — but we got to make them pay for it. We got to find a way to do that, and find a way to get the revenue to do it.”
That exercise in raw politics, he said, would be an exception to what he insisted would otherwise be a constructive relationship with Republicans in the state capital.
“I’m not going to just be an antagonistic in your face with what is likely to be a Republican-controlled House and Senate,” Jones said. “We can only do things if we work together, but that is a big deal. We should have done it a long time ago.”
Jones adopted a similar tone when asked how he would navigate his relationship with Trump should he win the governorship in November, saying that he would be vocal on issues such as tariffs but generally not oppose the administration without provocation.
“I think we can work together as long as it’s going good for Alabama, but if it’s not, then he’s going to hear from me,” Jones said.
Tuberville, for his part, is a close Trump ally and is angling for the president’s endorsement. He said he welcomes Jones’s entry into the race, claiming his opponent’s candidacy is about staying “relevant.”
“I’m glad he’s running,” Tuberville said, noting Jones’s 20-point loss in 2020. “I mean, they’re gonna run somebody.”
Jones could have run for his old Senate seat instead of the governorship, and as a brief window into how he views the current debates over healthcare in Congress, said that he would be open to a compromise bill on Obamacare subsidies, assuming its income limits aren’t too restrictive.
“I’m open to anything, as long as we can get people to be able to keep their insurance,” Jones said.
On the fraud guardrails, he questioned whether Republicans were using the problem as an excuse, but again supported the changes in concept, noting his years as a federal prosecutor in Alabama.
“You know, as a former United States attorney, we did a lot of cases involving false claims with the government and fraud against the government,” Jones said. “I want to try to root that out. Happy to do that, but I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water either.”
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Jones said he ultimately decided to pursue the governor’s mansion over another congressional bid because of growing “dysfunction” in Washington, describing state services as where the “rubber meets the road for the people that live there” and lamenting Alabama’s low rankings on healthcare and the economy.
“That’s why I want to run for governor, and that’s why I think people are going to see a different campaign and different candidates, and they’re going to look for new leadership,” he added.