Ousted chief justice happy to make runoff in Ala. race for U.S. Senate

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is trying to play usurper to deep-pocketed Republican forces after making a runoff with incumbent Sen. Luther Strange in the state’s Senate primary.

Getting to the runoff is a sweet win for Moore, who was twice stripped of his chief justice duties — for refusing to remove a biblical monument he installed in a state judiciary building and for resisting federal gay marriage rulings.

And Moore is relishing his opportunity to repudiate what he calls “silk-stocking Washington elitists” as he heads into another clash between the GOP establishment and the party’s conservative populist wing.

“They’ve got a clear choice in this coming election, somebody who represents Alabama values or somebody who represents Washington values. If they want to move this country forward and stop the stagnation in the U.S. Senate, they’ll vote for me,” Moore told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Strange’s campaign got the endorsement of President Donald Trump and benefited from millions of dollars in advertising by a super political action committee tied to McConnell. But he trailed Moore, who rode his horse to his local polling station on Tuesday, by about 6 percentage points, or about 25,000 votes in the low-turnout special election for the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.