Ex-UM assistant football coach Tuberville beats Sessions in Alabama
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 that he held for two decades before resigning to become Trump’s attorney general in 2017.
Tuberville was an assistant coach at the University of Miami from 1986-1993.
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 amid Trump’s lagging popularity nationally.
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 had been the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump during the GOP presidential primary campaign, insisted he was required by law to recuse 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
Sessions 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 on Monday. “He had his chance and he blew it.”
In the closing weeks of the runoff campaign, Sessions answered Trump on Twitter, telling the president he was “damn fortunate” Sessions recused 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.
Tuberville ran a risk-adverse campaign, declining media interviews and Sessions’ challenges to debate in the closing weeks of the campaign. Despite Alabama’s fundamental Republican advantage, Tuberville is almost certain to face more scrutiny in a general-election campaign against Jones.