Ex-coach draws up win that shuts out Sessions

Loss of Trump’s favor dagger for Senate bid

MOBILE, Ala. — Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions lost the Republican nomination for his old Senate seat in Alabama to former college football coach Tommy Tuberville, likely ending a long political career with a bitter defeat egged on by President Donald Trump.

Tuberville, 65, beat Sessions in Tuesday’s Republican runoff as Sessions fell short in his attempted comeback for a seat he held for two decades before resigning to become Trump’s attorney general in 2017.

Familiar to Alabamians from his decade as Auburn University’s head football coach, Tuberville is now positioned for a robust challenge against Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones.

With Alabama’s strong GOP tilt, the seat is widely viewed as Republicans’ best chance for a pickup as they try to maintain their thin Senate majority.

Sessions, 73, was wounded by Trump’s criticisms after he recused himself in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Sessions, who’d been the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump during the GOP presidential primary campaign, insisted that he was required by law to recuse himself because he was a potential subject and witness given his campaign ties to the president.

Trump endorsed Tuberville after Alabama’s March primary, when Tuberville finished just ahead of Sessions with a third of the vote but well shy of the majority required for the nomination.

The president tweeted: “3 years ago, after Jeff Sessions recused himself, the Fraudulent Mueller Scam began. Alabama, do not trust Jeff Sessions. He let our Country down. That’s why I endorsed Coach Tommy Tuberville (@Ttuberville), the true supporter of our #MAGA agenda!”

The president continued his criticism of Sessions right up to the eve of Tuesday’s election.

“I made a mistake when I put him in as the attorney general,” Trump told Tuberville supporters Monday. “He had his chance and he blew it.”

In the closing weeks of the runoff campaign, Sessions answered

Trump directly on Twitter, telling the president he was “damn fortunate” Sessions recused himself because it “protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration.”

But it wasn’t enough to overcome dynamics that Tuberville willingly embraced. Boosted by both Trump’s endorsement and name recognition from his coaching tenure, Tuberville positioned himself as a political outsider and capitalized on the president’s criticisms of Sessions.

“Jeff Sessions was a disaster It’s time to send a message to Jeff Sessions that President Trump does not want him or his cronies in the swamp” Tuberville wrote on Twitter. In other developments:

President Trump’s former White House physician won the Republican nomination for a U.S. House seat in Texas on Tuesday in a primary runoff election that unfolded amid an alarming spread of the coronavirus across the state.

Ronny Jackson, a retired Navy rear admiral, defeated Josh Winegarner in a primary runoff in the deeply red Texas Panhandle. Jackson was also the White House physician to presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Trump’s endorsement for his former doctor carried Jackson to victory in his first run for office.

Voters in Texas were also picking Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate to go up against Republican incumbent John Cornyn. The race between MJ Hegar, a former Air Force helicopter pilot who nearly won a House seat in 2018, and state Sen. Royce West remained too close to call hours after polls closed.

For now, both remain underdogs against Cornyn, a three-term Senate veteran.

Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon beat two other Democrats on Tuesday for the right to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in a race that’s critical to the battle for control of the Senate.

Gideon, who’s raised $23 million in her Senate bid, turned back challenges by activist Betsy Sweet and attorney Bre Kidman.

Gideon is poised to further increase her haul. Her victory entitles her to $3.7 million from a crowdsourced fund for Collins’ challenger that was established during the Senate fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation.

Democrats were furious over Collins’ vote in favor of Kavanaugh.