Tommy Tuberville

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The national “blue wave” may not have crested high enough to overwhelm statewide Republican candidates in Alabama, but it did make an impact.

Looking at the race for governor, Democrat Doug Jones increased the Democratic vote share in every county by at least 10 percentage points.

Jones, who lost to Republican Tommy Tuberville by around 4 points, had the best showing of any Democratic gubernatorial candidate in more than two decades. He earned 806,253 votes, or 47.86%, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office. Tuberville won the race with 872,561 votes, or 51.79%.

Jones’ vote total is the highest any Democrat running for governor has earned in Alabama history, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Despite his win, Tuberville underperformed relative to his Republican counterparts on the ballot for constitutional offices.

Those other GOP candidates earned between 2.5 and 3.19 percentage points more of the vote share than Tuberville’s 51.79%, the lowest of any Republican running for statewide office. Incumbent State Treasurer Young Boozer had the highest vote share out of any statewide Republican at 54.98%, or 917,177 votes.

Here’s a deeper look at the results from the governor’s race.

Following the longstanding trend, Tuberville performed better in rural and suburban areas while Jones cleaned up in urban areas and counties with majority Black populations. Jones won Alabama’s three most populous counties: Jefferson, Mobile and Madison.

Tuberville took Baldwin County, the fourth most populous, and 47 others. Jones won 19 counties in total.

Alabama Daily News calculated each county’s partisan margin in the governor’s race by taking the difference between each candidate’s share of the total ballots cast in the race. No independent or Libertarian candidates were on the ballot, and fewer than 6,000 voters wrote in a candidate statewide.

Each candidate earned their highest vote share in a rural area.

Cleburne County, which sits on the border with Georgia, had a partisan margin of R+67.62, which was Tuberville’s highest vote share in any county.

Greene County in the Black Belt showed up the strongest for Jones with a margin of D+68.68.

These two rural counties marked the endpoints for partisan margin, but their small size minimizes their electoral impact.

Unlike the blowouts for each candidate, six counties were within five points of an even split between Jones and Tuberville. Butler, Pike and Lee counties went for Tuberville with partisan margins between R+3 and R+4. Chambers County had a margin of R+2.71.

Conecuh County had the closest margin in the state, with Jones winning by 129 votes, a D+2.64 margin. Barbour County also went for Jones with a D+3.94 margin.

Republicans lost ground in around 99% of counties nationally on Tuesday, according to an analysis done by Reuters and USA Today. Alabama was no different.

Jones received at least 10 percentage points more of the vote share in the gubernatorial race than 2022 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Yolanda Flowers did in every one of Alabama’s 67 counties. The average countywide shift toward Democrats was 25.9 percentage points.

Incumbent Gov. Kay Ivey dominated that 2022 race with 946,932 votes, or 66.9%. Flowers got 29.2% statewide, or 412,961 votes. The 2022 contest also had a Libertarian candidate – James Blake – who earned 3.2% of the vote, which could explain some of the shift.

In addition to earning 393,000 more votes statewide than Flowers did, Jones flipped eight counties from Republican to Democratic.

The counties Ivey won in 2022 but Jones took in 2026 were Barbour, Clarke, Conecuh, Madison, Marengo, Mobile, Russell and Tuscaloosa.

Madison County, the third most populous county in the state, had the greatest shift to the left of all 67 counties, with a nearly 41-point move toward Democrats between 2022 and 2026.

Ivey earned 72,059 votes, or 59.86%, in Madison in 2022. Jones earned 92,597 votes, or 57.88%, on Tuesday. That’s a shift from R+24.82 to D+16.16.

In the rapidly changing and growing Huntsville area, Democrats also flipped two State Senate seats and one House seat.

The smallest increase in Democratic vote share came in Greene County, a highly Democratic area. The county shifted from a rating of D+57.85 to D+68.68.