Bannon takes heat from GOP for loss in Alabama race
NEW YORK — Former White House strategist Steve Bannon is catching blame from fellow Republicans for coughing up a safe Senate seat in deep-red Alabama and foisting damaging political advice on President Trump. But in the aftermath of this week’s stinging Alabama defeat, Bannon is showing no signs of abandoning his guerrilla war against the GOP establishment.
Bannon wholeheartedly backed Roy Moore, the insurgent conservative who faltered in Tuesday’s special election amid allegations that he had preyed on underage girls decades ago. The accusations prompted the national party to withdraw support for its nominee for a while, but Bannon stuck with Moore, headlining rallies for the candidate and convincing Trump to extend a full-throated endorsement.
But when Moore lost on Tuesday, handing the Democrats control of their first Senate seat in Alabama in a generation, Republicans turned on Bannon. The Breitbart News head already had made scores of enemies for declaring a siege on his own party.
“This is a brutal reminder that candidate quality matters regardless of where you are running,” said Steven Law, head of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC for Republicans aligned with GOP leadership. “Not only did Steve Bannon cost us a critical Senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the country, but he also dragged the president of the United States into his fiasco.”
Bannon’s team vowed that its revolution would continue, insisting that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should be the one to take the blame.
Bannon’s allies dismissed the Alabama loss as little more than a temporary setback that would soon be forgotten. They expect that the Republicans cheering Moore’s loss will simply enrage Trump’s most loyal supporters nationwide, who already suspected some Republican leaders were trying to undermine the president’s agenda.
“They’re stomping on the very base they need to turn out for their candidates in the general election in 2018,” said Andy Surabian, a senior adviser to the Bannonbacked Great America PAC. He contended that “the average Republican voter across the country is pointing their finger at Mitch McConnell and the Republican establishment.”
Bannon’s team blamed McConnell for abandoning Moore, though it was a somewhat incongruous argument after Bannon warned McConnell to stay out of Alabama when Moore won the GOP primary. On his Sirius XM radio show Wednesday, Bannon credited Democrats with “outhustling” the GOP on the ground in Alabama — praise that doubled as a swipe at the lack of Senate Republican campaign committee field staff on the ground in the state.
The fate of Bannon’s insurgency may depend on whether he can keep Trump’s ear.
In the hours after Moore’s loss, Trump was restrained, according to a White House official and an outside adviser not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Some in the West Wing had hoped the loss would prompt Trump to sever ties with Bannon but the president did not seem inclined to take that step, according to the two people.
Since Bannon’s exit from the White House in August, he has remained close to the president, speaking to him frequently by phone.