In all of my life, I have never witnessed so much public excitement, enthusiasm, and anticipation about a governor’s race, especially one that is still eight months away.
Even more interesting is the fact that there is only one major candidate running, and if we are lucky and truly blessed, he may march straight into the Governor’s Mansion unopposed.
To help make that hope a reality, I am writing this column to offer him my full, unequivocal, and enthusiastic endorsement for election as our next governor of Alabama.
Of course, I am referring to former Auburn University football coach and current U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, who has already made a significant impact in our history just five years after bursting onto the political scene.
Retiring from coaching in 2016 and serving as an on-air football analyst on ESPN, Coach Tuberville felt the call to run for the U.S. Senate for all the right reasons, not to gain fame, power, or wealth, since he already had all of those things, but to serve his country in a cause much greater than himself.
Following his election to the U.S. Senate in 2020, Coach Tuberville quickly proved himself as one of the strongest, most loyal, and most effective allies of President Donald Trump, and their friendship and mutual respect for each other have continued to grow during White House meetings, strategy calls, and visits to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
Their similarities make their friendship easy to understand.
Both hold hard-right, uncompromising, Make America Great Again views and go to battle daily with liberals and woke extremists pushing a radical agenda.
Both offer easy-to-understand, commonsense explanations of difficult-to-understand, complicated issues.
And both spar with the left-wing media with the best of them and can cut aggressive reporters off at the knees with their sharp wit and plain-spoken speaking style.
But more than just being a talented talker, Coach Tuberville is an aggressive doer, too.
I serve as the state Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries and can offer eyewitness testimony that Coach Tuberville is using his seat on the Senate Agriculture Committee to be a loud voice fighting for farmers in Alabama and across the nation.
He introduced the Protecting America’s Agricultural Land from Foreign Harm Act, which bans any individual, business, xor other entity with ties to Iran, North Korea, China, or Russia from purchasing farmland in the U.S. and threatening our food security. And Coach has demanded an honest-to-goodness Farm Bill that “focuses on farmers, not food stamps.”
As I have traveled the state hosting listening sessions with Coach Tuberville about challenges facing farmers and have continually made appearances before a variety of other groups, I have heard high praise expressed for the job Coach is doing on behalf of Alabamians. Alabama’s senior senator is standing tall in D.C. to protect our American values and the fundamental everyday truths that will remain eternal, such as men are born men, women are born women, and no amount of pretending can ever make one the other because God did the choosing for us.
Now Coach is ready to devote his leadership skills and vision to change the way Montgomery operates, just like Donald Trump has worked to change how Washington, D.C., does business, and I look forward to helping him accomplish that mission.
I am running as a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and plan to be Coach’s strongest supporter, loudest voice, and most effective promoter of his policies in the Alabama State House, which will be easy since we have been good friends and have the same conservative values.
Alabama’s governors and lieutenant governors run separately rather than on one ticket, and as a result, we have often seen them pull in opposite directions. But with Coach and me rowing in the same direction, the future is bright, the sky is the limit, and opportunity exists as far as the eye can see.
Coach Tommy Tuberville has my full, committed, 100% support as our next governor, and I look forward to working alongside him to bring even better days ahead for all Alabamians.
Rick Pate is the Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries and a candidate for Lt. Governor of Alabama in 2026.
