WASHINGTON – The race to replace Tommy Tuberville in the U.S. Senate is heating up, as a Trump administration official who helped orchestrate an unprecedented blockade on military confirmations enters the GOP field.
Morgan Murphy, a former Tuberville aide who worked at the White House until last week, will announce his candidacy for Alabama’s open Senate seat at an event the evening of Sept. 22 in Birmingham, Alabama.
A captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve and former food critic who worked at Southern Living and Forbes magazines before he entered the national security space, Murphy is a first-time candidate. He achieved notoriety in Washington for engineering Tuberville’s months-long hold on military promotions over objections to the Department of Defense’s abortion policy.
“I feel called to run because President Trump’s America First agenda is the first political movement in my lifetime that made sense to me,” Murphy told USA TODAY. “And I want to see his common-sense approach to government last not just another three-and-a-half years while he’s in office but well beyond.”
More: Tommy Tuberville, ex-Auburn football coach, announces 2026 campaign for Alabama governor
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) arrives for a Senate Armed Services Committee about the Department of the Navy review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 22, 2021. To Tuberville’s left: then-aide Morgan Murphy.
Tuberville is forgoing a reelection bid to run for governor of Alabama in 2026. The former Auburn University football coach did not respond to a request for comment.
Alabama rated ‘safe’ for Republicans
A handful of Republicans have already declared their candidacy for Tuberville’s Senate seat, including former U.S. Marine Jared Hudson, state attorney general Steve Marshall, and U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, another Trump-aligned candidate.
The winner of the GOP contest in Alabama is likely to win the general election. Alabama is generally considered a “safe” seat for Republicans.
Marshall had an early lead among likely Republican voters in a late August survey by The Alabama Poll. He had 37% support to Moore’s 16% and Hudson’s 7%. Businessman Rodney Walker was at 1% in the survey. Forty percent of those polled said they were undecided.
Murphy, 53, floated a Senate bid immediately after Tuberville announced his plans in May. He has a 10-year-old son and lives in Birmingham.
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His prior roles include serving as press secretary to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller at the tail end of Trump’s first administration and working as a military aide to Tuberville. Murphy also served as a senior fellow at the Trump-supporting America First Policy Institute alongside Keith Kellogg, the president’s special envoy to Ukraine.
He also served as Kellogg’s chief of public diplomacy at the White House and State Department from the end of February until last Friday.
Miller told USA TODAY in a phone call that Murphy was assigned to handle his public affairs, but they were of similar ages and quickly bonded, Murphy became one of his most trusted advisers.
The Senate confirmation hold strategy Murphy worked on in Tuberville’s office was “extremely effective and very transformative,” while other policies he helped develop became a template for how the Trump administration has sought to reduce the size of government, Miller said.
Trump announced in early September that he plans to move U.S. Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama, giving Murphy an opening to campaign on investments in defense, Miller noted. “He’s kind of the guy, he knows the business,” Miller said.
In a statement on his candidacy, Murphy emphasized his ties to Trump and Tuberville, whose office he resigned from over a profile that credited him with orchestrating the military hold.
“You better believe President Trump and Coach Tuberville both demand excellence on every level,” Murphy told USA TODAY. “I’m proud to have worked for both men and will make it my mission to continue their fight in the U.S. Senate for years to come.”
Kellogg said Murphy did a good job as his spokesman, and described him as “very, very steady” and “very deliberate about what he does.” He said Murphy has his “full support” in the Senate race.
The White House did not respond to a request.
Murphy said he’d spoken to Tuberville and informed the White House of his bid but had not spoken directly to the president.
“The president likes to back winners, and I want to get out on the campaign trail and prove that I have support before I ask him for his support,” Murphy said.
He said he also hopes to earn Tuberville’s support in the primary but is not entering the race with the expectation of automatically receiving either of his former bosses’ support.
Trump has a complex history with Alabama Senate endorsements
Trump easily won Alabama with more than 60% of the vote in the last three elections. But when it comes to his Senate endorsements, the state has been a source of heartburn.
Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned his Alabama seat in 2017 to join the Trump administration. He was pushed out of the role the following year after coming under assault from Trump over his handling of the department’s Russian collusion investigation.
Alabama’s attorney general at the time, Luther Strange, was appointed to fill the vacancy and had Trump’s backing in a special election to fill the remainder of Sessions’ term. But he lost the GOP primary to Roy Moore, a former chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court whose campaign was dogged by allegations of sexual assault.
Republicans kept their distance from Moore until Trump endorsed him just before the election. The close contest resulted in former U.S. attorney Doug Jones becoming the first Democrat to be elected to the Senate from Alabama in 25 years.
When the seat was back on the ballot in 2020, Trump waited to endorse Tuberville until the retired football coach found himself in a runoff against Sessions.
In Alabama’s other Senate seat, Trump endorsed and then yanked his support from former Rep. Mo Brooks in the Republican primary. He then backed the eventual winner of the 2022 contest – Sen. Katie Britt, a former aide to the Republican retiring from the seat, Richard Shelby.
This article has been updated to include new information.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Morgan Murphy enters race to replace Tommy Tuberville in US Senate