Doug Jones Mobile Rally With Jason Isbell Puts Fuel Costs at Center of Governor’s Race

Doug Jones launched his campaign's final push with a Mobile rally featuring Jason Isbell, focusing on diesel and household costs, while Tommy Tuberville blamed Democratic energy policy for high fuel prices.

By James Bullard

September 24, 2026 · 7:13 am Updated November 11, 2026 11 min read

Doug Jones Mobile Rally With Jason Isbell Puts Fuel Costs at Center of Governor's Race

MOBILE, Ala. — Democratic gubernatorial nominee Doug Jones opened the last stretch of his campaign Wednesday night, Sept. 23, with a “Rally for Alabama” at Crown Hall in downtown Mobile. Grammy-winning Alabama musician Jason Isbell performed, and Jones told supporters that fuel prices, electricity rates and household costs should be at the center of the governor’s race. His Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, pushed back on those arguments this week, saying Democratic energy policy is to blame for high fuel prices.

A crowd of a couple of thousand people came to the free event, which filled the downtown venue. Jones’ campaign called the Mobile stop the start of its final push before the Nov. 3 general election and said more rallies are planned around the state between now and Election Day.

The event came one week after Jones and lieutenant governor nominee Phillip Ensler held a town hall at Bishop State Community College in Mobile. It also fell the night before Isbell and his band, the 400 Unit, were scheduled to headline the Halstead Amphitheater in Fairhope.

Jones Puts Diesel and Daily Costs Up Front

In an interview during the rally, Jones said making everyday life more affordable for Alabama families is one of his top priorities. He focused especially on diesel fuel.

Jones said that last week when he was there, gasoline prices had skyrocketed and diesel fuel prices continued to rise.

He said higher diesel prices are squeezing some of the state’s key industries and pointed to Gulf Coast shrimpers, farmers and truck drivers. Jones also talked about his proposal to eliminate state taxes on fuel, which he said could help bring prices down.

According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of diesel in Alabama hit $6.16 this week, about 80% higher than a year ago.

Electricity costs are another major part of Jones’ message. He has raised concerns about how growing demand from data centers could affect power rates and nearby communities. At last week’s Bishop State town hall, he said he has called for a one-year moratorium to put “guardrails” on data centers. His other campaign themes include health care, child care, housing and lowering day-to-day costs.

Jones said they decided it was time, and that it was time Alabama started sending a message to folks in Montgomery.

He said he wants Alabama to stop ranking near the bottom of lists that measure good outcomes and near the top of lists that measure bad ones.

Wages, Benefits and Local Control

Jones said part of addressing cost-of-living worries is how the state invests in its workers, including when it offers incentives to businesses.

Jones said they had to do a cost-benefit analysis to ensure good value, which meant investing in workers, not just those in the boardroom or C-suite, and ensuring good benefits and wages.

He also said cities such as Mobile should have more say over their own affairs. Alabama’s constitution gives the Legislature broad control over local government, so cities and counties often need legislation passed in Montgomery to make changes that local officials in many other states can make on their own.

Jones said he actually wanted to give the mayor and city council more authority than the legislature does, to open up government so they don’t have to go to Montgomery for every little thing.

Tuberville: Energy Policy Is the Cause

Jones has recently tied rising fuel costs to President Donald Trump’s policies and to Tuberville. In a news release Monday, he said the impact reaches all the way to the coast.

Jones said farmers, truckers, and shrimpers on the coast are docking their boats and can’t get out, so people are struggling and see the blame going directly to Trump and his enablers like Tommy Tuberville, his opponent.

He made the same argument at last week’s Mobile town hall and in Monday’s release, saying shrimpers at the dock cannot afford diesel costs and that Tommy Tuberville has not said a word about it.

Tuberville rejected the criticism. In a statement, he said he hopes the war in Iran ends soon and argued that the country needs to be ready for future emergencies.

Tuberville said he hoped President Trump would find a way to end the conflict, but Democrats need to remember to prepare before the group arrives because there will always be another crisis.

Tuberville said Democratic energy policies helped drive up today’s fuel prices, and he renewed his call for more domestic oil production. He cited Democratic opposition to projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline and said the country needs “more American energy.”

Tuberville said Doug Jones shouldn’t be talking about higher gas prices but should be apologizing for them.

Tuberville also said he fought for shrimpers and fishermen during his time in the U.S. Senate, saying they feed families, support communities, and keep Alabama moving, and that they deserve affordable fuel, but Americans also deserve safety from nuclear terrorism.

A Coastal Republican Defends Tuberville’s Seafood Record

State Rep. Chip Brown, R-Hollingers Island, came to Tuberville’s defense on commercial fishing. Brown said Tuberville has consistently backed Gulf Coast seafood interests, especially efforts to require country-of-origin labeling for imported seafood.

Brown wrote in an op-ed this week that his neighbors do not need another speech about loving the Gulf, but a governor who will fight for fair markets for seafood, honest labeling, healthy habitat, and a busy port to keep the region growing.

Country-of-origin labeling rules require sellers to tell customers where seafood was harvested or farmed. Domestic shrimpers have long argued that clearer labeling, especially at restaurants, helps customers tell Gulf shrimp from cheaper imports.

Shrimpers Were Struggling Before Fuel Prices Rose

Industry leaders say high fuel costs have made things harder for a Gulf shrimp fleet that was already under pressure from low prices and imports. According to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, more than 90% of frozen shrimp imports come from four countries.

The alliance’s surveys have found that some shrimpers are using fuel they bought earlier, or are fishing at little or no profit, to keep their crews working while they wait for diesel prices to drop.

Blake Price, director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said in March that recognizing every American is coping with rising fuel costs, they aim to find solutions in the national interest for food producers, emphasizing that America needs to feed itself as a matter of national security, and current fuel prices cannot be the reason America loses its infrastructure and capacity to harvest its vast resources.

The industry’s losses started before the latest fuel price increases. Using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, the alliance reports:

Total Gulf shrimp revenue fell more than 50% in two years, from $489 million in 2021 to $221 million in 2023.
An estimated 1,300 jobs were lost on federal shrimp vessels over the same period.
A 2025 State of the Industry report found the 2024 shrimp harvest was the smallest since the 2000s.

For Mobile and Baldwin counties, home to working seafood fleets in Bayou La Batre and elsewhere along the coast, fuel prices and imports are local economic issues, not abstract policy debates.

What Rally-Goers Said

Supporters at Crown Hall described a mix of priorities. Mobile resident Austin Finkley said education was his main concern because he wants historically accurate textbooks.

Ashton Mack said household costs affect people across the state and in Mobile, listing gas, cost of living, and food as things that affect everyone daily, whether single or with five kids.

Mobile resident Chris Bryant also named cost of living, saying the main things he’s looking at are cost of living and quality of life, and that people don’t realize how much diesel costs will affect them down the road.

One voter at the rally said she is a Republican who decided to support Jones, explaining that she started listening to him and found his message made more sense than her party’s, and she believes he is there for the people and their hope.

A Rematch Six Years Later

The governor’s race is a rematch. Jones won a 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate, defeating Republican Roy Moore, and served from 2018 to 2021. He lost his 2020 re-election bid to Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach, who has served in the Senate since 2021 and is now the Republican nominee for governor.

Isbell has campaigned with Jones before. The singer-songwriter from the Muscle Shoals area headlined a free get-out-the-vote concert in Huntsville before the 2017 special election and played an acoustic fundraiser for Jones in Birmingham during the 2020 race.

Mobile County, the state’s second-largest county by population, has often mattered in statewide races. Jones carried the county in 2017 but lost it in 2020. Both campaigns have spent time in the area this fall.

Key Dates for Voters

Alabama’s general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Sample ballots are available through the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office. Important deadlines:

Absentee voting: began Sept. 9 for qualified voters.
Voter registration and updates: Oct. 19.
Absentee applications by mail: must be received by Oct. 27.
Absentee applications delivered in person: due by Oct. 29.
General election: Nov. 3.

Jones’ campaign says more rallies are planned across Alabama before Election Day. Voters will choose between Jones and Tuberville for a four-year term as governor.

Update: More From the Rally and the Campaign Trail

Additional details from Wednesday night’s rally and Jones’ pre-rally news conference shed more light on the policies he is promising and the sharp exchanges between the two campaigns.

‘Doug can win this’

Isbell, the six-time Grammy winner, told the crowd he believes Jones could become Alabama’s first Democratic governor since Don Siegelman left office in 2003.

Isbell said Doug can win this race.

Jones acknowledged that his candidacy was once seen as a long shot. He pointed to Democratic inroads in statewide races in Republican states such as Texas and Iowa, and to President Donald Trump’s falling national approval ratings, as reasons for renewed energy.

Jones said he wasn’t given a snowball’s chance, with pundits and opponents picking out drapes and buying houses in Montgomery, but they are showing them they better watch out.

Not everyone in attendance was convinced. Besides Jones’ 2017 special election win over Roy Moore, no Democrat has won a statewide election in Alabama since 2008, and Tuberville maintains a healthy campaign finance advantage. The limited public polling in the race has shown Tuberville as the frontrunner.

Emily Jackson of Mobile said she was encouraged by the energy in the room but cautiously on guard about the state, worried that if they don’t show up and reach less informed people, they won’t get it done.

The debate over debates

Jones criticized Tuberville for declining to debate him and for not holding town hall meetings, saying his opponent speaks mostly to associations and other groups in a very controlled environment.

Jones said Tuberville can talk to the Mobile Chamber of Commerce all he wants, and he talks to them too and has great friends there, but Tuberville needs to talk to voters.

Jones also referred to Tuberville’s Florida properties and accusations that his main residence is a beach house along 30A between Destin and Panama City Beach, saying that when you spend most of your time in Florida, you don’t really care about listening to Alabama voters.

Tuberville responded that it appeared Doug seems mad about not getting invited to speak to small businesses and law enforcement officers.

Tuberville said that when you refuse to support these people, they remember at election time, and that his defunding-the-police and tax-raising Democrat buddies set the country back and have no reason to support him.

Jones has said he is the opposite of the defund the police movement and would advocate for more resources for police training. Tuberville said that when he is not working in the Senate, he is back home meeting with voters, businesses, farmers, and veterans, and accused Jones of waiting until months before the election to start campaigning.

Tuberville said they continue to lead every poll and he expects to grow that support over the next month, so they’ll have to see how good Doug feels come November 3.

During the rally, the crowd booed videos of Tuberville discussing his 10-month hold on senior military promotions and nominations in 2023, as well as a clip of his recent remarks about fuel prices. The Jones campaign also highlighted Jones’ Senate work to eliminate the so-called military widow’s tax, drawing emotional praise from Cathy Milford, a Mobile-area military widow who became one of the most visible advocates for the repeal.

Jones’ policy list

In his speech, Jones laid out several policies he says he would pursue as governor:

Cut the remaining 2 percentage points of the state sales tax on groceries. Tuberville has also expressed support for cutting the grocery tax.
Impose a moratorium on new data center construction.
Expand Medicaid eligibility, a move he said he would pursue on his first day in office.
Address child care affordability.
Temporarily freeze the state’s 10-cent-per-gallon fuel tax increase implemented in 2019.
Pursue legislation allowing early voting.
Strengthen ethics laws and prohibit Alabama elected officials from trading stocks while in office.
Pass a lottery bill through the Legislature.

Speaking to reporters, Jones also said he would advocate for a citizen-initiative ballot process, which would require an amendment to the Alabama Constitution. Citizen initiatives, allowed in 26 states but not in Alabama, let citizens rather than lawmakers place measures on the ballot through petition drives. He also called for expanded home rule to give cities and counties more authority over taxes and local ordinances.

A plane ticket for the president

At his pre-rally news conference, Jones said he would be willing to pay for Trump’s plane ticket to Mobile to help commemorate the start of the $4.15 billion Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, arguing that the president’s approval ratings are among the lowest in recent history.

Jones said he is clearly the most unpopular president in his lifetime, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon at his lowest point, and that the Trump presidency is hurting people in Alabama.

Alabama Republican Party Chairman Scott Stadthagen responded that the party would happily charter an entire plane to fly national Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden to Alabama to campaign for Jones. Tuberville’s campaign said Jones would rather whine and cite fake polls.

Trump’s standing in Alabama remains positive, if softer than in past years. A Civiqs analysis of state-by-state job approval shows Trump with 47% approval and 43% disapproval in Alabama, a net score of +4, with 10% undecided. A day after Jones’ remarks, Trump’s team announced a midterm rally at the Mitchell Center in Mobile on Oct. 2.

Jones also said he expects bridge tolls to remain a political issue after the Alabama Department of Transportation disclosed that toll rates will rise with the Consumer Price Index. He said he would support creating an inspector general-type position to oversee toll rates and project finances.

Jones said that looking at all projects in Alabama, it seems they say and do whatever it takes to get them started, then costs go up, and in this case it will be an increase in toll rates.