Alabama Governor 2026: the ads, and who's paying for them
Tommy Tuberville (Republican) and Doug Jones (Democrat) are the candidates for governor of Alabama in the November 3, 2026 general election. Semblen has analyzed 42 ads in this race; 27 used at least one manipulation technique, most often loaded language and name calling.
27 of 41 (66%) flagged · Loaded Language (22), Name Calling (17), Appeal to Prejudice (13)
YouTube
0 of 1 flagged
Reported Meta spend
$85,500–108,283 on all ads, $54,500–68,131 on flagged ads · Meta reports ranges; these are the sums of their ends
Example
“spreading lies” — Loaded Language, paid for by Doug For Alabama
· the flagged ad with the highest reported spend that shows the most common technique
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A small box with these findings and the newest ads, updated as new ads are analyzed. Free for newsrooms, blogs and campaigns alike; it links back here.
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Each side is the campaign plus the groups backing it. How a group is placed is explained below the table.
Side
Ads
With at least one technique
Most common
Tuberville (R)
31
22 of 31 (71%)
Loaded Language (18), Name Calling (13), Appeal to Prejudice (11)
Tuberville's campaign
5
5 of 5
Loaded Language (4), Appeal to Prejudice (3), Black-and-White Fallacy (3)
1 group backing Tuberville
26
17 of 26 (65%)
Loaded Language (14), Name Calling (11), Appeal to Fear (8)
Jones (D)
6
2 of 6
Loaded Language (2), Appeal to Fear (1), False Urgency (1)
All from the campaign; no ads here from groups placed on this side.
Not placed on a side (2 sponsors)
5
3 of 5
Name Calling (3), Appeal to Prejudice (2), Loaded Language (2)
Read this before comparing the sides. Ads that attack an opponent use these techniques far more often than ads that introduce a candidate, whoever runs them, so the side running more attack ads shows a higher share. A technique is about wording, not about whether an ad is true. These are online ads only (Meta and YouTube), not television.
How a group is placed: by its own filings with the Federal Election Commission. A group is with a candidate when it reported spending to support that candidate, or to oppose the other one in the general election. The parties' own committees are with their nominee. Spending against a candidate in a primary places a group nowhere, and neither does our reading of its ads: a group with no such filing is listed as not placed. The sponsor table gives the reason for each.
Decide what counts
Not everyone would call every technique manipulation. Untick the ones you'd call ordinary persuasion and the count updates.
64% of the 42 ads here use at least one of the techniques ticked below (27 ads).
Leaving out the softer ones (loaded language, glittering generalities, slogans, exaggeration, repetition): 64% of ads.
The words doing the work
The words that show up most in phrases our model flagged as loaded language or name calling in this race's ads, by number of ads.
liesin 4 ads· e.g. “Tommy's lies”, “lies about supporting veterans”
governmentin 3 ads· e.g. “make big government bigger”, “expand government control over your health care”
socialistin 3 ads· e.g. “Democrat Socialists”, “socialists”
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Money in this race
Candidates for governor report their fundraising to Alabama's state campaign-finance office, not the FEC. This page doesn't cover those reports yet, so it shows no money figures.
The ads
42 ads, newest first. Video transcripts are shown as the model read them, without caption cues like [music].
Showing the 1 ad paid for by SOUTHEAST LEGAL MARKETING, LLC. Show all 42 ads
Paid for by SOUTHEAST LEGAL MARKETING, LLCfrom 2026-09-16 to 2026-09-21spend $100–19910,000–14,999 impressions
Coming up on September 19th on The Legal Lowdown With Joe Ingram, Joe welcomes back former U.S. Senator and current Democratic candidate for Governor of Alabama, Doug Jones.
A lifelong Alabamian, attorney, former federal prosecutor, and former U.S. Senator, Doug has spent decades working in law and public service. He is taking a break from the campaign trail, to become Alabama’s next governor, and will return to "The Legal Lowdown" for another conversation with Joe.
To optimize this great opportunity, we will be taking questions from our audience. If you have a topic you would like us to discuss, click the link below, and submit your question for Mr. Jones and we will try our best to get it on the air:
https://joeingramlaw.com/legal-low-down/
All questions must be submitted by 10:00 a.m. this Friday.
So, tune in on September 19th for this exciting opportunity to hear directly from Doug Jones about his experience, his campaign, and his vision for Alabama.
#thelegallowdown #joeingram #dougjones #alabama #alabamagovernor #alabamapolitics #publicservice #leadership #podcasts #podcastinterview See less
no techniques found
Looks up the ad's factual claims in fact-checkers, primary sources and wire reporting. Takes up to a minute.
An email when new ads come in from either side or the outside groups: the techniques, the words doing the work, and who paid. And each debate's analysis the morning after. One-click unsubscribe.
An ad is on this page because its own "Paid for by" line is a campaign in this race; or it ran mostly in AL and names a nominee for governor — unless its sponsor is a campaign for some other office (a U.S. Senate or House campaign included), or it also names AL's Senate nominees, in which case it is on the Senate race's page. Ads from outside groups appear alongside the campaigns' own.
The candidates are the ones certified for the November ballot, from the source linked at the top. Governors are state offices, so there are no FEC filings behind this page: no money figures, and outside groups are placed on a side only when they are a campaign or a party committee.
Campaigns run one text as many separate ads. Identical text from the same sponsor is one card here, marked with its number of variants.
A technique is a specific manipulative move in the wording, found by our model and explained in one line. It is not a claim that the ad is false.
Claims are checked when a reader asks: press "Check this ad's claims" on a card. The check runs once and its result is shown to everyone afterwards. The ten ads with the most money behind them in each race are checked ahead of time.
Claim verdicts say what the cited sources say. A verdict that an ad is wrong or misleading is shown only when it cites an established fact-checker or an institutional record — Congress, a federal agency, a court — and its confidence is not low; a weaker one is not shown at all. Each verdict shows what it rests on and how confident it is. If we got one wrong, press Disagree: a verdict that readers dispute and no one defends comes down.
Video ads come from the campaigns' own YouTube channels; the transcript is analyzed. Meta ads are analyzed on their text; their video and images are not, yet.
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