President Donald Trump told a crowd of roughly 8,000 supporters Friday night to vote like he is on the ballot in November. “Can everybody just close your eyes and pretend I’m on the ballot?” Trump asked the crowd.
Mobile was the president’s second stop in a month-long campaign for Republican congressional candidates across the country. Supporters lined up at the Mitchell Center on the University of South Alabama’s campus hours before doors opened. The building was roughly 75 percent full by the time Trump took the stage.
Alabama is a Republican state, and Alabama’s 1st Congressional District – which Mobile falls in under a new map – is rated solidly Republican by Cook Political Report. The neighboring 2nd Congressional District, where incumbent U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile faces state Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, the GOP nominee, is considered more competitive.
Trump said Friday he came to Alabama, and plans to go to other Republican states, to pay his respects to the people who love him. “Oklahoma and Alabama, I’m here to say hello,” he said. “I’m here because sometimes even though you don’t have to come here, you’ve got to pay respect to the people that have loved me every year.”
Trump’s approval rating has fallen across the country – and in Alabama – since the beginning of the Iran war in February and the subsequent increase in gas prices. He told attendees the war will end sometime after the midterms. “They’re never going to have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “As soon as it does end, oil prices will come tumbling down.”
Trump-endorsed Alabama Republican nominees opened for Trump, including gubernatorial nominee and U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who walked on stage to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama (left), the Republican nominee for governor of Alabama, shakes hands with President Donald Trump at the Mitchell Center at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama on October 2, 2026.
Tuberville pledged to invest in workforce development as governor. “We’re going to use our hands. We’re going to teach people and our kids. We’re going to teach them education, and we’re going to teach them how to live a life, to do things with their hands and make decisions,” Tuberville said.
Trump touted the Senate’s bipartisan passage of the Protect College Sports Act, and urged Alabamians to elect Tuberville as governor. The senator coached football at Auburn University from 1999 to 2008. “We’re going to pass something that brings sanity to college football. The Senate passed it, and we had a lot of help, bipartisan help. Can you believe it? Shocking,” Trump said.
The president also reiterated his endorsements of U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, the nominee to replace Tuberville; Jerry Carl, the nominee for the 1st Congressional District; state Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, the nominee for the 2nd Congressional District; John Wahl, the nominee for lieutenant governor and Florida gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds. He also endorsed Katherine Robertson, the party’s nominee for Alabama Attorney General.
He mentioned Republican U.S. Reps. Robert Aderholt of Haleyville, Dale Strong of Madison and Gary Palmer of Hoover, but said he did not need to “waste time” on them because they are “so far ahead.” He did not mention Republican nominee for the 7th Congressional District Ammie Akin, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Selma, or U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks.
