MOBILE, Ala. — Doug Jones and Phillip Ensler, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, will hold a joint town hall in Mobile on Wednesday, Sept. 16, at Bishop State Community College, where organizers say the two will take questions directly from residents.
The format is open-ended. According to the announcement, attendees will be able to raise whatever they want to raise, from jobs and the cost of living to infrastructure and the environment.
Organizers framed the event around the region’s current growth and the question of how that growth reaches households. The announcement cited billions of dollars in investment around the Port of Mobile, the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project moving forward, and continued industrial and job growth in the region, alongside rising costs for housing, groceries, health care and utilities.
“There’s a lot happening in Mobile right now, and that’s a great thing,” Jones said. “But I want to make sure it’s working for the people who actually live here. Are you finding good jobs? Can you afford to build a life here? Do you feel like you and your family are getting ahead?”
Jones said the discussion will not be limited to economics. The announcement listed the future of the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway, protection of Mobile Bay, health care, education and everyday cost-of-living pressures as topics on the table.
“I’m going everywhere, and I’m talking to everybody,” Jones said. “Democrats, Republicans, independents, people who voted for me before and people who never have. You don’t have to agree with me on everything. Come ask me the tough questions. If I’m asking for your vote, I should be willing to answer them.”
Who Is On The Stage
Jones represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 2018 to 2021, winning a special election to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions and serving the remainder of that term. Before entering the Senate he was a U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. South Alabama News has reported on his 2026 campaign activity in the region, including a planned Mobile rally with musician Jason Isbell and an earlier town hall in Montgomery.
Ensler is the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor. He currently serves in the Alabama House of Representatives, representing a Montgomery-area district, and announced his campaign for statewide office in December.
In Alabama, the governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately rather than as a ticket, so joint appearances by candidates for the two offices are a campaign choice rather than a structural one.
What The Lieutenant Governor’s Office Does
Because one of the two participants is running for lieutenant governor, the office itself is worth a brief description.
The Alabama lieutenant governor is elected statewide to a four-year term. The officeholder presides over the Alabama Senate and casts tie-breaking votes there, and under Senate rules has influence over committee composition and the referral of bills to committee. The lieutenant governor is first in the line of succession, becoming governor if the governor dies, resigns or is removed, and serving as acting governor when the governor is out of the state for an extended period. The office also carries seats on a number of state boards and commissions.
The current lieutenant governor, Republican Will Ainsworth, has held the office since January 2019 and is term-limited, which makes the 2026 race for the seat an open one.
The Venue: Bishop State Community College
Bishop State is one of Mobile’s oldest public higher education institutions and a historically black college.
It traces to 1927, when it began as a branch of Alabama State College in Montgomery offering extension courses to African American elementary and secondary teachers. In 1965 the Alabama State Board of Education established it as a separate institution, Mobile State Junior College, under president Sanford D. Bishop. The legislature renamed it S.D. Bishop State Junior College in 1971, and the board adopted the current name, Bishop State Community College, in 1989. In 1991 the board merged Southwest State Technical College and Carver State Technical College into Bishop State, producing the multi-campus institution that exists today.
The college operates four campuses in Mobile: the main campus on Broad Street, the Southwest Campus, the Carver Campus and the Baker-Gaines Central Campus. It awards associate degrees and career and technical certificates.
The college has been in the news locally for workforce programs tied to the same industries the town hall announcement references. South Alabama News reported this month that Bishop State won a $2 million grant for submarine trades training, and that every graduate of its first maritime boot camp cohort finished the program with a job offer in hand.
Background: The Mobile River Bridge And Bayway
The bridge project the announcement mentions is the largest single infrastructure undertaking in the region’s history, and it is at a decisive point.
The Alabama Department of Transportation is pursuing a phased plan. Phase One consists of a new six-lane cable-stayed bridge over the Mobile River, the restriping of the existing Bayway to six lanes, and associated interchange work. Phase Two, a replacement Bayway structure across Mobile Bay, would be built later and financed with toll revenue. The first phase is currently estimated at roughly $3.2 billion.
Tolling is part of the financing. Under the current plan, no tolls are collected until the new bridge opens, which is projected for 2031. The published rate structure includes a $60 monthly unlimited commuter pass, a $3 per-trip rate for users of the state’s ALGO Pass program and a $7.70 rate for other transponder users. Existing free crossings — the Causeway, the Wallace Tunnel, the Bankhead Tunnel and the Africatown Bridge — remain toll-free under the plan.
South Alabama News reported that the Alabama Toll Road, Bridge and Tunnel Authority approved the $3.2 billion financing package and set toll rates, and that local officials marked a path forward for the project with a groundbreaking expected by the end of the year. The project’s financing hinges on a federal TIFIA loan and a bond sale scheduled for Sept. 16 and 17 — the same days as the town hall.
A replacement crossing for the Wallace Tunnel has been discussed in Mobile and Baldwin counties for roughly three decades, through several changes of plan, financing structure and toll proposal. Wednesday’s bond sale is the step that determines whether the current version proceeds on schedule.
Background: Investment At The Port Of Mobile
The port investment referenced in the announcement is also concrete and ongoing.
The Alabama Port Authority and APM Terminals are committing $131 million to a new container berth at the Port of Mobile. The project adds a 1,300-foot berth at the south end of the existing container terminal, along with seven ship-to-shore cranes, and is designed to let the terminal work three ultra-large container ships at once. It is expected to raise annual berth capacity by about 50 percent, to 1.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units. Construction is slated to begin this year with roughly a 24-month build.
That work follows the $366 million deepening of the Mobile Harbor channel to 50 feet, which made Mobile the deepest container port on the Gulf. More than $200 million in additional investment is underway or planned, including a 33-acre container yard expansion, rail capacity upgrades and an on-dock rail flyover bridge. APM Terminals’ concession to operate the container terminal runs through 2058 with two optional 10-year extensions.
The port also appeared in this year’s round of Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act awards: South Alabama News reported that the Alabama Port Authority received $5 million for wetlands creation as part of the more than $52 million Gov. Kay Ivey announced for 21 coastal projects on Aug. 21.
Why These Topics Come Up Together
The subjects listed for the town hall — jobs, transportation, the bay, health care, education, household costs — are linked in coastal Alabama in ways they are not everywhere else.
Container volume at the port drives demand for warehousing, trucking and rail, which drives demand for the technical credentials community colleges award. Highway capacity across the Mobile River determines how quickly freight and commuters move between the two counties. Water quality in Mobile Bay bears on commercial and recreational fishing, tourism and the value of waterfront property that local tax bases depend on. Each of those threads eventually lands on a household budget.
That overlap is why regional forums in Mobile tend to cover the same ground regardless of who convenes them, and it is the terrain the Wednesday event is organized around.
If You Go
The town hall is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 16, at Bishop State Community College in Mobile. The announcement did not specify a campus, a start time or a registration requirement; those details are available from the organizers.
Alabama’s general election for state offices, including governor and lieutenant governor, is set for November 2026.