A homemade video shows former U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) on the Alabama-Georgia state line.
He explains his very first issue in his newly-announced campaign for Governor in the 2026 election: Legalizing the lottery in Alabama.
Alabama’s four surrounding states – Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Florida – all have legal lotteries and are members of the multi-state Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots, drawn three times a week.
Soon after Jones posted the video, the Powerball drawing stood at about $1.5 billion, and has since been won by a single ticket sold in Arkansas.
In the video, Jones wanders around to record video of the full parking lot at the Robinson convenience store in Georgia, where he claims dozens of vehicles with Alabama tags are pulling in to buy lottery tickets from Georgia drawing.
Jones is the only character in his two-minute video.
“Hey folks, it’s Saturday, it’s December 20th, and tonight the Powerball is 1.5 billion dollars.
That’s billion with a B.
And I’m standing right across the Alabama-Georgia line in Georgia because you can’t get a Powerball ticket in Alabama. You can see the sign behind me at 1.5 billion dollars, and right now the traffic coming over here was incredible. The parking lots across in these, there’s like four places here that sell lottery tickets. Now this is parking lot here at Robinson’s right across the line, it is completely full. You can look across the street, same.
Things happening up the hill, same things happening.
You can’t imagine the number of Alabama tags that I’m seeing in this parking lot. Alabama needs a lottery. This is crazy to how people streaming over from Birmingham, Alabama, and all places in Alabama, streaming East coming to Atlanta and Georgia, streaming North coming to Tennessee, streaming West going over to Mississippi, and creating a traffic jam going down to Florida, poor.
Tommy Tuberville is probably going to get stuck in traffic going home for the holidays down in Santa Rosa Beach. But that’s what we’re missing out on. Millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. We got to change that, folks. We got to change that coming up. Legislature is going to be looking at it this time. We need to vote on a lottery. Don’t wait till I get elected governor. We need to vote on a lottery this year, make that vote next November.
So everybody can come out. 1.5 billion dollars. And all the money that’s coming over is time that we put the Power back in the people’s hands. It’s time you had a vote on a lottery. We need to tell all the legislators down in Montgomery, we want a lottery. It’s time to get it. So let’s all get ready for the coming year, 2026, when Alabama finally joins the rest of the South in getting us a lottery.
I’m going to head back. I’m going to go get my tickets now, and then I’m going to head back to Birmingham. Oh, and by the way, Roll Tide,” Jones says.
The idea of using the lottery as a mainstay of a campaign for governor of Alabama is not new with Doug Jones.
In 1998, gubernatorial candidate Don Siegelman used the lottery as his main issue — almost only issue — in running against incumbent Governor Fob James (R-Opelika).
Siegelman brought up his support of the lottery so much and so often that political commentators would say that the solution to funding any Alabama need is a lottery, according to Siegelman.
Support of the lottery may have worked for Siegelman in the short run, but it catastrophically failed in the long run.
Lt. Governor Siegelman defeated Governor James for re-election in the November 1998 general election. As soon as he was inaugurated, he pushed the lottery measure through both houses of the Alabama Legislature.
After that, things went downhill.
A referendum of voters in a 1999 special election failed, and it was not particularly close. Siegelman spent the remainder of his term trying to explain away why his lottery amendment failed.
The early failure of the much-ballyhooed lottery in the Siegelman administration helped pave the way for a re-election challenge from then-Congressman Bob Riley.
Siegelman was the last Democrat to be elected Governor of Alabama, and the general elections have not since been close.
Siegelman and the failure of his marquee issue helped turn Alabama into a ruby red state.
Not only that, but a criminal indictment concerning a campaign contribution to the lottery came down after Siegelman had completed his one term as governor. Siegelman was eventually convicted and served federal time, losing all efforts for a reversal or pardon.
Will the lottery issue be any more effective for Democrat Doug Jones than it was for Democrat Don Siegelman?
Jim Zig Zeigler is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News. His beat includes the positive and colorful about Alabama – her people, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former State Auditor and Public Service Commissioner. You can reach him at [email protected].
