To the national media, the 2020 U.S. Senate race in Alabama is all about Roy Moore, the famed “Ten Commandments” judge accused in 2017 of a history of improperly pursuing romantic relationships with teenagers. That focus is wrong.
The real race in Alabama, and a very interesting one, is for which Republican will qualify for a primary runoff election against Moore, for the right to face extremely vulnerable Democratic incumbent Doug Jones.
Secretary of State John Merrill entered the race June 25, bringing the GOP field to six candidates — five of them seen as viable. Two other potentials candidates also wait and watch, knowing the deadline for Republicans to submit qualifying papers isn’t expected to be until Nov. 8.
Until Merrill’s entry, the campaign looked as bizarre as a Twilight Zone episode. Merrill somewhat normalizes it into more of an Amazing Race event, with conventional contestants and renegades all vying against each other through unusual terrain. Herewith, then, is a handy, viewers’ guide, in alphabetical order:
Bradley Byrne. The U.S. Representative from Mobile has an accomplished record as state school board member, state senator, and reformist chancellor of Alabama’s two-year college system, before becoming a conservative go-to policy guy in Congress for the Trump administration and for small businesses. Byrne enjoys a roughly $2 million fundraising head start, and statewide name identification from a high-profile, but failed, run for governor in 2010. His two biggest hurdles involve reputational scars from that 2010 race (the front-runner, he was overtaken in the Republican primary by then little-known state Rep. Robert Bentley) and a sense that he just doesn’t do “populist” very well.
John Merrill. A onetime president of student government at the University of Alabama, Merrill combines a conventionally solid record with a folksy accent and impressive retail “people skills.” He’s as tireless and as perpetually upbeat a campaigner as you’ll ever see. He cannot, however, transfer funds from a state campaign account to a federal one, so he starts well behind on that front. And he has no particularly strong geographic or ideological base.
Arnold Mooney. The state representative is a conservative hardliner but, even in the strongly conservative state House, he is nobody’s idea of a legislative powerhouse. Little known statewide, he has ties to national conservatives via his son Gaston, the president of Blaze Media. His best bet might be to try what another legislative back-bencher, Bentley, did successfully in 2010: sit there and act pleasant while the front-runners bloody each other up, then emerge at the last minute, unsullied, as a “nice guy” choice.
Roy Moore. People outside Alabama just don’t understand what a folk hero Moore is for a large subset of the population after his decades of fights for posting the Ten Commandments in public and against gay marriage. Plus, there’s a backlash of sympathy for him after the 2017 debacle. His backers believe the allegations against him were fake news pushed by the Washington Post, and will say that “if they lied about [Supreme Court Justice] Brett Kavanaugh, they must have lied about Judge Moore, too.” Hey, rationalizations can be powerful. He’s almost a lock at least to make the runoff.
Tommy Tuberville. The former Auburn head football coach shows horrendous ignorance of key policy issues when asked, but he has the same remarkable human touch that helped him sign recruits to a flailing program and achieve an undefeated season. Not even news that he voted just last year in Florida, not Alabama, seems to diminish his populist charm. He is polling better than most pundits think he should. The question is, with Moore also running in the populist lane, does Moore’s official entrance into the race last week leave Tuberville just breathing fumes?
Finally, former U.S. senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions may just attempt a comeback, and local papers keep reporting that U.S. House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Gary Palmer could make a late entry.
In sum, this contest promises to be remarkably fluid. Meanwhile, Democratic incumbent Doug Jones keeps building his war chest as the GOP spends its money in intramural battle. Seeing the GOP tussle like this, he must be rooting for more, more, Moore. That’s surely how he likes it.
