As an Alabama newsman who has covered closely former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for more than 20 years, I have decidedly mixed feelings about the multiple reports that he is considering a race for his old Senate seat.
Sessions was an excellent, principled senator, and at 72 is vibrant enough to give Alabamans another productive term while bringing considerable expertise, competence, and seniority to the job. It requires no denigration of the other Republican candidates for the seat to say that, in a vacuum, Sessions would be a more immediately effective senator than they could be.
Alas, there is no political vacuum.
Despite Sessions’ continuing, unfailing loyalty to President Trump and Trump’s agenda, Trump has done nothing but heap unmitigated (and unmerited) scorn on Sessions ever since the Alabaman rightly recused himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Whereas Sessions easily was the most popular politician in the state before becoming attorney general, his standing among Republican voters here clearly has taken a fall since the popular Trump began denigrating him.
In a multicandidate Republican primary, Sessions almost certainly enjoys enough residual goodwill from enough of his party’s voters that he would be a shoo-in to reach a two-man runoff. But if his runoff opponent is, for example, former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, and if Trump keeps vilifying Sessions, then the former attorney general might have a tough time securing the nomination.
Even in his home area in the southern part of the state, Trump’s insults clearly have had an effect. Mobile’s center-right talk radio station, WAVH-106.5 FM, runs online polls which, while utterly unscientific, tend to be a pretty good indicator of broad-brush local sentiment. Today’s poll asks (yes or no) if respondents would vote for Sessions in a GOP primary. As of this writing, the tally is running 65-35 against him.
As Tuberville has shown himself much more personable than knowledgeable, his sometimes embarrassing know-nothingism might make him a less-than-sterling delegate for Alabama in the nation’s capital.
What if Sessions gets in a runoff with controversial former state Chief Justice Roy Moore? It is a distinct possibility. Moore remains a folk hero among a significant percentage of Republican voters. Many of them dismiss allegations that he acted inappropriately with teenage girls as mere “fake news” pushed by the Washington Post. Trump’s 30 months of attacks on Sessions might make Sessions more vulnerable to a primary runoff defeat by Moore than other contenders would be. Moore, in turn, surely remains the easiest Republican for incumbent Democrat Doug Jones to beat in the 2020 general election.
A Sessions entry thus could catalyze another nightmare scenario for Republicans not just in Alabama but nationwide, as every Democratic candidate in the country would try to paint their Republican opponents as allies of the radioactive Moore.
I for one would love to see Sessions back in the Senate. He is a dedicated public servant and a man of truly fine character, and his views align well with a clear majority of his state’s citizens.
Nonetheless, it probably isn’t wise for him to reenter the fray. He doesn’t deserve another eight months of having the president flay him, and his party and state may not be well served by his candidacy, no matter how well intentioned he may be.
