On Friday, October 30, voters across Alabama got a text message inviting them to a "Vote with Pride" rally with Doug Jones, the Democrat running for governor against Tommy Tuberville. The rally was set for that night at 8 p.m.

There was no such rally. The Jones campaign told Lagniappe it had nothing to do with the texts. And when someone replied to opt out, the automatic answer named the sender: "SECPAC."

SECPAC is short for Southeastern Conservative PAC — a super PAC created by a nonprofit whose three founders are some of the people closest to Tuberville's campaign.

What the text said

Lagniappe described the message in detail:

• It greeted each voter by first name.
• It came from someone calling herself "Jess," who signed off with the pronouns "She/Her."
• It said: "As a friend, I wanted to ask if you could join us tonight in person or online. No RSVP necessary."
• A graphic showed rainbow Pride stripes, a logo made to look like the Jones campaign's, and the words "VOTE with PRIDE" over "Get Out the Vote Rally with Doug Jones and Friends."
• It told people to click a link or reply for details. There was no link.
• It never said what organization was behind it, and it gave no website.

The real Doug Jones campaign had advertised an 11:30 a.m. meet-and-greet that Friday at a community center in Centre, in Cherokee County, Lagniappe reported. There was no public event on his schedule that evening.

The texts went out four days before Alabama's November 3 election.

Why fake a Pride rally?

The trick only works if the people who get the text are meant to be put off by it. A fake invite from a "friend" with pronouns in her signature, to a rainbow-striped rally, apparently sent to voters across Alabama by a conservative PAC, is not a get-out-the-vote message. It is built to make Doug Jones look like something the sender thinks Alabama voters will reject — using Jones's own campaign look so it seems to come from him.

It fits the way Tuberville himself talks about LGBTQ people. In a Senate floor speech in September, he blamed Charlie Kirk's killing and the Butler shooting on trans people and warned that your pilot might be a furry. Trump's own FBI found no sign the Butler shooter was trans. And this summer he cosponsored a bill to ban federal money for even studying care for trans kids.

Who is behind SECPAC

Southeastern Conservative PAC is real, and its federal paperwork is public. It registered with the Federal Election Commission on March 5, 2026, as a super PAC — the kind that can raise and spend unlimited amounts as long as it doesn't coordinate with a campaign. Its address is in Mountain Brook, outside Birmingham.

The PAC's own website calls itself "SEC PAC" in an introductory article titled "It Just Means More." That article says the PAC plans to work by "rostering a team of Trump, Tuberville, and MAHA veterans."

The PAC was set up by the Southeastern Conservative Foundation, a "social welfare" nonprofit. That kind of group doesn't have to say who gives it money. Lagniappe reported that the foundation's three founders are:

• Jackie Curtiss Cox, Tuberville's campaign fundraiser
• Ashley Doufexis, wife of Tuberville's campaign manager, Jordan Doufexis
• Louis Breland, a major Tuberville campaign donor

We wrote in September about where some of the foundation's money came from: $200,000 from the Sports Betting Alliance, the lobby for FanDuel and DraftKings, in a state where sports betting is illegal. It was the alliance's largest grant of the year.

Follow the $25,000

The PAC's FEC reports show exactly one donor so far: the Southeastern Conservative Foundation, which gave it $25,000 on March 11, 2026, six days after the PAC registered. Through September 30, that was every dollar the PAC had raised.

That's the shell game. The foundation doesn't have to disclose who gives it money. The foundation hands it to the PAC. The PAC files reports that list only the foundation as its donor. A voter who wants to know who paid to put a fake Doug Jones rally on their phone hits a wall.

The PAC's most recent report, covering through September 30, shows about $4,100 left in the bank and spending only on things like website services, compliance and legal help.

What Tuberville has said

Nothing on the record. His campaign did not immediately respond to Lagniappe's request for comment.

That's in keeping with how he has run this race. In August, he was asked to debate Jones and turned it down: "There's so much difference between us. I mean, there's no reason to get up there and argue about differences of opinion." A candidate who won't stand on a stage with his opponent now has people from his own inner circle tied to texts putting words — and a fake rally — in that opponent's mouth.

What the record shows

Four days before the election, Alabama voters got texts inviting them to a Doug Jones "Vote with Pride" rally that did not exist, with no disclosure of who sent them. The opt-out reply named "SECPAC," the abbreviation Southeastern Conservative PAC uses for itself. That super PAC's only reported donor is a dark-money nonprofit — founded by Tommy Tuberville's fundraiser, his campaign manager's wife and a major donor — which gave it $25,000 and has also taken $200,000 from the sports betting lobby. Tuberville's campaign did not immediately respond to Lagniappe.

Source

This post is based on Lagniappe's reporting by Scott Johnson.