MOBILE, Alabama — Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions faces an uphill battle to win back the U.S. Senate seat from Alabama that he held for 20 years. Sessions now will be in a March 31 primary runoff with former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, but Tuberville appears to have edged Sessions for first place in Tuesday’s first primary and enjoys considerable momentum.
Indeed, Sessions now probably needs three things to happen for him to regain his seat. First, President Trump must continue to refrain from commenting on the race, rather than openly endorsing Tuberville. Second, the primary’s third-place finisher, U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, must endorse Sessions. Third, Sessions must get an opportunity for a statewide televised debate with Tuberville and must clearly outperform the former coach.
Just four years ago, Sessions easily was the state’s most popular politician. For him to fail to run first demonstrates just how much he was hurt politically by the barrage of contempt and verbal abuse heaped on him by Trump in the wake of Sessions’s recusal from the Russia-related investigation that plagued the president’s first two years in office. Tuberville has never run for office before and was registered to vote in neighboring Florida until he entered this race. By all political precedent, Sessions should have run handily ahead of Tuberville rather than trail him. (With votes still coming in as of this writing, both look likely to receive between 30% and 34% of the ballots.)
If Trump decides to roast Sessions, the former attorney general will probably be toast. Trump consistently has had higher approval ratings in Alabama than in any other state.
Then again, Trump knows that Sessions is a tremendously able fighter for Trump’s pet issues of border security and tough trade practices. If Trump actually wants somebody who knows how to work the Senate effectively on his behalf, Sessions clearly is his better choice. Trump of course won’t actually support Sessions, but if he stays out, Sessions has a shot.
Byrne, meanwhile, got about 25% of the vote in a seven-way race. Tuberville’s campaign attacked Byrne unmercifully, while Sessions focused most of his fire on the football coach rather than Byrne. Plus, Byrne and Sessions have been relatively friendly for years, and both share the same geographic and social base in the southern part of the state. If Byrne strongly supports Sessions rather than staying out, it would be more natural for Byrne voters to back Sessions than Tuberville.
In the end, though, Sessions will need to slay Tuberville man to man. Sessions is not a great public speaker, but he is immensely knowledgeable. Tuberville, on the other hand, is a great schmoozer and “people person,” but his level of knowledge on both state and national issues appears to be as thin as onion skin. Plus, his familiarity with Alabama’s proverbial “highways and byways” is nowhere near as extensive as that of Sessions. Despite his 10 years at the helm of Auburn’s football program, he just doesn’t understand the state’s customs as viscerally as Sessions does.
If Sessions can make Tuberville look foolish in a televised debate, the former senator still has a chance.
Even so, Sessions right now must rank as the underdog. When he entered the race last fall, he was leading the polls substantially. With an uninspired first-primary campaign, he squandered that advantage. Now, his political career is at serious risk. He needs to remind the people of Alabama why they once loved him, and of how he can deliver successes on the issues they care about — and he needs to do it soon and very, very well.
