Roy Moore is poised to jump into the Alabama Senate race in a bid to earn a rematch with Sen. Doug Jones, the Democrat who handed the former judge a stunning defeat in a 2017 special election.
Moore this past weekend told a gathering of grassroots Republicans that he would announce his 2020 plans in a matter of weeks. The 72-year-old perennial statewide candidate would enter the Republican primary the front-runner, according to a fresh poll.
Moore lost to Jones in deep-red Alabama amid revelations of sexual misconduct from decades ago. But the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court is champing at the bit for a do-over, believing he was treated unfairly and that voters, with the passage of time, would agree.
“The people of Alabama were hoodwinked; Jones had a free pass,” Moore confidant Dean Young told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “I would not be surprised if Judge Moore gets back in it.”
Moore is the one candidate that makes Republicans in Washington nervous.
Past allegations of sexual misconduct and what some regard as extreme right-wing positions limited Moore’s appeal against Jones in the December 2017 special election and could do so again. For that reason, both establishment insiders and conservative operatives are prepared to oppose Moore in the primary if he runs.
“The NRSC’s official stance is ABRM: anyone but Roy Moore,” Kevin McLaughlin, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in February, after Moore started making the rounds to gauge another run. “The only thing Doug Jones and I agree on is that his only prayer for electoral success in 2020 is a rematch with Roy Moore,” McLaughlin said.
In the new Mason-Dixon poll, Moore led a crowded, hypothetical field with 27%, followed by Rep. Mo Brooks with 18%, but Brooks appears unlikely to mount a bid at this point. Rep. Bradley Byrne, who declared for Senate earlier this year, was third in the survey, with 13%, trailed by Rep. Gary Palmer and Del Marsh, a wealthy state legislator, two potential contenders.
Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, whose senior adviser is Sean Spicer, President Trump’s first White House press secretary, also is vying to take on Jones. But the Republican was not measured in this survey of registered voters, which had an error margin of 4 percentage points.
The poll revealed steep challenges for Jones, who has voted with liberal Democrats in the Senate on most issues. The incumbent receives a solid 45% job approval rating, but only 40% said they would vote to reelect him.
