President Trump and White House aides are still grappling with the loss of a GOP Senate candidate for whom Trump campaigned in Alabama’s special election despite warnings from Republican leaders to stay away from the controversial nominee.
But administration officials signaled Wednesday that the defeat may not change how the White House approaches political decisions during 2018 midterm races, when Trump will likely endorse and campaign on behalf of numerous Republican candidates and incumbents.
“I think this election was, to put it quite mildly, a pretty unique situation,” a White House aide told the Washington Examiner. “Ultimately, this race was a referendum on [Republican candidate] Roy Moore by the people of Alabama. I don’t think this necessarily changes the game plan or the thinking going into ‘18.”
Democratic Senator-elect Doug Jones’ victory on Tuesday in the race to replace Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., to fill the rest of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ term dealt a political blow to Trump and whittled his party’s slim Senate majority down to just two seats.
Moore, a former state supreme court judge who faced allegations of pursuing romantic relationships with teenagers as young as 14, lost narrowly to Jones in a race that pitted Trump against much of his party, as most elected Republicans and GOP groups withdrew their support of Moore after the first wave of sexual misconduct allegations surfaced. The Republican National Committee reengaged last week following Trump’s decision to endorse Moore.
Although the president congratulated Jones shortly after major media outlets declared him the winner Tuesday evening, Trump hinted that write-in votes had cost Moore a victory and later claimed his endorsement of Moore’s Republican primary opponent Strange, the appointed incumbent, proved he “was right” about Moore’s inability to win a general election.
“[The] president hates losing. I expect he is in a sour mood,” a source close to the White House told the Washington Examiner.
Trump broke with many GOP leaders who expressed relief at Moore’s defeat on Wednesday by acknowledging his disappointment that the party would soon lose a vote in the Senate.
“A lot of Republicans feel differently. They’re very happy with the way it turned out,” Trump said. “But I would have — as the leader of the party, I would have liked to have had the seat. I want to endorse the people that are running.”
A White House aide said Trump’s desire to protect the Republican Senate majority comprised almost all of the logic behind backing a candidate with flaws as obvious and explosive as Moore’s.
“The main question I’ve been getting this morning is, what was the calculation for the president in endorsing Moore?” the aide said. “I think it just comes down to brass tacks, is that we have such a slim margin in the Senate, he felt like this was a binary choice.”
“I think, people are obviously going to armchair quarterback this thing, and I think the other point to be made is that the president’s base, I would think they wanted him to endorse Moore as well,” the aide added. “Number one, the realities of having such a razor-thin margin in the Senate and number two, hey, his base probably wanted him to support the Republican in the race. And I think that was the political calculation.”
The White House aide also highlighted the amount of outside money and support for Jones that flooded the Yellowhammer State in the weeks before the election.
Trump’s decision to back Moore marked the second time he had chosen a candidate in the Alabama race who went down in defeat. The president’s endorsement of Strange during the GOP primary had aligned him with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who also supported Strange, but had him square off against his former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Following Strange’s loss to Moore in September during the primary run-off, Bannon and his allies claimed victory over McConnell and characterized the result as a rejection of the majority leader, whom Moore had promised to oppose if elected.
Bannon leveraged his clout with the populist wing of the party to drum up enthusiasm for Moore despite doubts in Washington about whether the controversial judge could win a general election contest with his history of inflammatory statements on race and religion. After most Republicans pulled their endorsements and material support from the race en masse amid Moore’s sexual misconduct scandal, Bannon refused to abandon his candidate and doubled down on Moore’s insurgent campaign all the way to the election-eve rally he attended on Monday.
A source close to Bannon told the Washington Examiner that Bannon spoke with Trump by phone just days before the president decided to throw his weight behind Moore last week, a sign of the close relationship that remained between the two men after Bannon’s departure from the West Wing this summer.
Despite the White House’s contention that the Alabama contest contained a unique set of circumstances that are unlikely to repeat themselves in future races, Trump allies are reportedly questioning the credibility and management style of Bill Stepien, White House political director, in the wake of the special election results. Stepien presided over the presidential endorsements of three Republican losers: Moore, Strange, and Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie.
