We’ll soon learn the value of President Trump’s endorsement. In a bit of a surprise, he jumped into the unpleasant Alabama Senate race and put his stamp of approval on Republican Senator Luther Strange.
Strange was appointed in January after Jeff Sessions, a senator since 1996, resigned to become attorney general in the Trump administration. The president tweeted his support for Strange just a week before the Republican primary next Tuesday.
Winning 63 percent of the vote, Alabama was Trump’s fourth strongest state in the 2016 election. And since then, he’s become even more popular in Alabama, where he has an approval rating in the 80s. Given these factors, the press had focused obsessively on whom the president might endorse, but the expectation was that he would sit out the race. Once again, the expectations on Trump were wrong.
With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on his side, Strange had a built-in asset. McConnell brought with him the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Senate Leadership Fund, both of which have spent lavishly on Strange’s behalf.
Polls have generally found Strange, Alabama’s former attorney general, and Roy Moore, the suspended chief justice of the state supreme court, to be running in the low 30s, followed by Congressman Mo Brooks in the low 20s (or high teens). There are a half-dozen lesser candidates.
The campaign has been dominated by appeals to Trump voters. Strange has done so in ads and stump speeches emphasizing his attachment to Trump, but McConnell’s intervention may turn out to have been a bigger factor. He is said to have personally prevailed on Trump to back Strange, whom McConnell has come to see as a valuable ally in the Senate.
Just as important, the Strange campaign has attacked Brooks for his stinging criticism of Trump in 2016, when he supported Ted Cruz. In response, Brooks never seemed to figure out how to deal with the Trump issue. (Like Brooks, Moore’s wife—though not Moore—has been critical of Trump.)
As eagerly as Trump’s endorsement was sought, it’s not clear how much it will help Strange, if at all. Last November, Trump ran behind Republican Senate candidates more often than not.
And it will be difficult to dislodge Moore supporters, especially. He has a solid block of evangelical Christian backers that have twice re-elected him to the state supreme court after he had been ousted for bucking federal court rulings.
Strange’s career as Alabama AG made him the class of the candidate field. He hired a crew of tough prosecutors who specialized in going after corruption by state officials. He was also a leader of Republican attorneys general in successfully challenging overreach by the Obama administration. And he was elected head of the Republican Attorneys General Association last year, resigning when he was appointed to the Senate by then-governor Robert Bentley.
The Bentley connection, however, has proved to be a drag on Strange’s campaign, because he accepted the appointment while his office was investigating Bentley. Mind you, there wasn’t any evidence of a deal: Bentley pleaded guilty to two charges of misusing state money and was forced to resign.
If no candidate gets to 50 percent in the primary, the top two finishers will meet in a runoff on September 26. The winner will face the Democratic nominee on December 12.
