Alabama GOP clears Tuberville to remain governor nominee after residency challenge

Alabama Republicans shut down a residency challenge to Tommy Tuberville, clearing the former Auburn football coach and U.S. senator to remain the party’s nominee for governor. The Alabama Republican Party’s 21-member steering committee met in Hoover on Sunday and unanimously rejected the complaint filed by Tuberville’s former primary opponent, Ken McFeeters.

The dispute centered on Alabama Constitution Section 117, which requires a governor to be at least 30 years old, a U.S. citizen for 10 years and a resident citizen of Alabama for at least seven years before the election. McFeeters argued that Tuberville had not lived in the state long enough to meet that standard, but Tuberville’s campaign has pointed to tax records showing he established Alabama residency in 2018. Party leaders said they reviewed the evidence and found Tuberville qualified.

The ruling keeps Tuberville on course for the November contest to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Kay Ivey and removes an immediate procedural threat inside the party. It also shows how much weight Alabama Republicans are giving to residency in a race involving one of the state’s most recognizable figures, a former college football coach who was sworn into the U.S. Senate in 2021 and is now one of four sitting senators running for governor in 2026.

The challenge had already been tested in court. An Alabama judge dismissed McFeeters’ residency lawsuit in May 2026, and McFeeters filed his GOP challenge in January. The party’s action did not open a broader ballot-access fight; it settled the nomination question within the Alabama Republican Party, at least for now.

That leaves Tuberville’s opponents with a different task. They can no longer lean on a party-level residency objection, and instead must attack his record, message and statewide appeal. The residency fight still matters because it raises a familiar Alabama question: how much does a national political career, built after years spent elsewhere, count against a candidate who now claims deep ties to the state?

McFeeters, a Pelham insurance agent and Republican candidate for governor, kept pressing the challenge even after the court setback. He later said he would step aside if the GOP gave him $6 million to create a lobbying group. Tuberville’s primary win on May 19, 2026, and Sunday’s unanimous ruling now put the party firmly behind him as the general election campaign moves from eligibility fights to a broader test of trust, loyalty and power in Alabama politics.