Firebrand Moore wins Alabama GOP primary runoff
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Firebrand jurist Roy Moore won the Alabama Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, defeating an appointed incumbent backed by both President Donald Trump and deep-pocketed allies of Sen. Mitch McConnell.
In an upset certain to rock the GOP establishment, Moore clinched a nearly 10-point victory over Sen. Luther Strange to take the GOP nomination for the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Moore will face Democrat Doug Jones in a Dec. 12 special election.
Moore, 70, is the state’s former chief justice who was twice removed from those duties after taking stands for public display of the Ten Commandments and against gay marriage.
“We have to return the knowledge of God and the Constitution of the United States to the United States Congress,” Moore told a cheering crowd in his victory party in Montgomery.
Moore told The Associated Press that the victory tells the establishment in “Washington, D.C., that their wall has been cracked and will now fall.”
The race has pitted Trump against his former strategist Steve Bannon who had argued Moore was a better fit for the “populist” movement. Introducing Moore, Bannon told a frenzied crowd that the victory was a repudiation of the “fat cats” of Washington who pumped millions into the Alabama race to boost Strange.
Bannon declared Moore’s win a victory for Trump, despite the president’s support for Strange. Moore said he supports the president and his agenda.
After the race, Trump tweeted his congratulations to Moore, noting that “Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race.” Moore said Trump had called him, but he missed the call because he was out in the crowd greeting supporters.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a group with ties to McConnell, had spent an estimated $9 million trying to secure the nomination for Strange.
SLF President and CEO Steven Law said Tuesday that Moore won the nomination “fair and square” and the group will now back him. Law says Moore “has our support, as it is vital that we keep this seat in Republican hands.”
In a statement, McConnell congratulated Moore and said Senate Republicans are committed to keeping the seat in GOP hands.
Even though Alabama has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in two decades, Democrats are hopeful they have an opening in the December election against Moore.
Jones is a former U.S. attorney best known for prosecuting the Klansmen who killed four girls in a 1963 church bombing. He said Tuesday that he wanted to focus the race on the “kitchen table issues” that matter to all Alabamians, “health care, education for our kids, jobs and a living range.”
Strange supporters were at least somewhat divided on how they will approach the general election in December.
“It will be closer than if Luther had won” the nomination, said Perry Hooper, a former state lawmaker who predicted some Republicans will stay home in December or even vote for Jones.
But Hooper, who served as Trump’s Alabama campaign chief, said he’s all in for Moore. “Ultimately, this is about helping the president,” Hooper said. “This is a Republican state, and Roy will help the president.”
Moore was twice elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and twice removed from those duties. In 2003, he was removed from office for disobeying a federal judge’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse lobby. Last year, he was permanently suspended after a disciplinary panel ruled he had urged probate judges to defy federal court decisions on gay marriage and deny wedding licenses to same-sex couples. He denied that accusation.