BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Voters head to the polls Tuesday for a crucial special election for an Alabama Senate seat that could shake Republicans in Washington and upend the party’s plans to expand its majority in 2018.
Outspoken social warrior and former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore was poised to upset Sen. Luther Strange in a GOP primary runoff despite President Trump’s coveted endorsement and the millions party-aligned groups spent on behalf of the genteel conservative appointed in January to replace popular Republican Jeff Sessions.
Senior Republican officials are uneasy. They worry Moore’s victory would fuel a groundswell of enthusiasm on the populist Right, triggering a wave of well-resourced primaries that weaken Republican incumbents — or worse, see them ousted in favor of weak general election nominees, dashing GOP hopes of broadening its 52-seat majority.
To help spark a come-from-behind win, Vice President Mike Pence was in Birmingham on Monday evening to urge Alabama Republicans to grant Strange the right to complete the six-year term Sessions won in 2014. “I’m here to ask every Alabaman to do everything that you can to send Luther Strange back to Washington,” he told a crowd of about 500 that gathered in airplane hanger to hear him turn out the vote for the senator.
Pence, encouraging the crowd to drag their friends, neighbors, and family to the polls, added: “Just tell them, President Donald Trump needs you to vote for Luther Strange.”
The public opinion polls looked very good for Moore. On the election eve, he led Strange in the RealClearPolitics.com average of recent surveys by a healthy 52.3 percent to 42.3 percent. Still, Strange and his allies remained cautiously optimistic.
Private polling showed a tight race, Republican operatives privy to internal data said. The Strange campaign also expressed confidence that a superior voter turnout operation and eleventh-hour visits by Trump on Friday in Huntsville for one of his signature rallies, and Pence in Birmingham Monday would push the senator over the top.
“All this late support is going to close the gap and seal it,” said John Coupland, 67, an optimistic Strange voter from Birmingham, as he exited the Pence really. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a veteran of six Senate races who has endorsed Strange, was a bit more circumspect. “I’m hopeful; I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he told reporters in Washington. “If it’s a big turnout, Strange wins.”
As Strange was rallying with Pence just outside of downtown Birmingham, Moore was staging his final campaign rally 260 miles due southwest in Fairhope, Ala., near Mobile.
The event was headlined by Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty”, and populist luminaries Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief White House strategist now back leading Breitbart News, and Nigel Farage, a leader of the British movement to exit the European Union.
Normally aligned with Trump, they’ve broken with the president to wage a proxy war with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and to an extent, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., for control of the Republican Party.
McConnell, who has not lost a Republican primary in five years, beating back all populist challenges in 2014, stands to lose big if Strange can’t pull out a win. McConnell’s super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, spent $9 million on Strange, and other groups tied to McConnell kicked in millions more.
A crack in the majority leader’s armor could reverberate throughout the 2018 primaries, as conservative agitators with deep pockets, like the Mercer family, feel more willing to invest in upstart challenger campaigns like those already underway against vulnerable Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada.
It would also be a blow to Trump. Endorsements tend not to be impactful with Republican voters in primaries. But if the president can’t move his base in a state like Alabama, where their allegiance to him is high, he could emerge with his influence substantially diminished.
“This should be wakeup call to everyone, from the president on down,” said Josh Holmes, McConnell’s former chief of staff and the architect of the majority leader’s tough, 2014 re-election. “Team ball to enact an agenda is going to be essential, or you’re all going to be in trouble.”
In Alabama, Republican voters’ frustration with their party in Washington is palpable, further fueling a pre-existing undercurrent of anti-establishment fervor.
Despite the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and an ongoing dismantling of Obama-era regulations by the Trump administration, Congress’ failure to repeal Obamacare, reform the tax code, and break ground on a border wall was a major sore spot for Republicans ahead of Tuesday’s runoff.
Republicans here don’t see it as Trump’s failure; and for Strange, collapse of the Republicans’ second attempt to clear an Obamacare repeal bill, which appeared imminent Monday after Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced her opposition to the package, could not have come at a worse time.
“I am sick, up to here, with these do-nothing Republicans,” said Johnny Creel, a 56-year-old Moore supporter who runs a small insurance agency in suburban Birmingham. He described his vote as less an embrace of Moore’s social values than sending a message of disapproval to Washington.
Moore was removed as Alabama’s chief justice twice — the first time for ignoring a court order to take down the Ten Commandments from the wall of his courtroom, the next for refusing to accept and enforce the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
He told the Washington Examiner in an interview Sunday that he would “bring the knowledge of God; the knowledge of the Constitution to Washington” if he defeats Strange and wins again in December over Democrat Doug Jones in the special general election (Trump said he would campaign for Moore in that race if he’s the nominee.)
Top Republicans fear Moore’s sermonizing from the Senate floor against abortion, gay marriage and other divisive social issues. Their anxiety is justified. In the past, Moore has said homosexuality should be outlawed and does not shy from confrontation.
Strange in an interview with the Washington Examiner was blunt about the danger Moore poses in the midterm, warning he could be another Todd Akin, the GOP Senate nominee who caused countless headaches for Republicans across the country in 2012 and blew a winnable race in Missouri with controversial comments about rape and abortion.
“There are a lot of people that think my opponent would be a Todd Akin, an anchor around the neck of the party,” Strange said. “Knowing him, that’s probably a valid concern — it really is.”
Al Weaver contributed to this report from Washington.
