Sessions pays price for incurring Trump’s wrath
MOBILE, Ala. — As a longtime senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions did nothing less than legitimize Donald Trump as a credible Republican candidate for president, endorsing him when no other big names did and championing him to conservative voters. As Trump’s star rose, Sessions’ rose, too.
But Tuesday night, as he sought once again to become a senator from Alabama, a job he loved, Sessions came crashing to the ground — and all at the hands of Trump, his ally-turned-patron-turned-antagonist-turned-sworn enemy.
Sessions was soundly defeated in Alabama’s Republican primary, the Associated Press reported, losing to a political neophyte, former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, whom Trump had enthusiastically supported while denigrating Sessions.
Tuberville’s victory was the most prominent result in voting across three states Tuesday. In Maine, Sara Gideon was vying for the right to challenge Sen. Susan Collins in November, in what would be one of most closely contested, and expensive, races in the country this year. And in Texas, voters in both parties went to the polls to decide runoffs in several House races and Democrats were picking a nominee to challenge Sen.
John Cornyn in November.
Tuberville will now face Doug Jones, the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for election in November. Jones narrowly defeated Roy Moore, a former state Supreme Court justice, in the 2017 special election to fill the seat vacated by Sessions.
In Maine, Gideon, the state House Speaker, was fending off nominal opposition from the left, which she largely ignored as she built a record-setting war chest. The race has already become the priciest Senate campaign in Maine history, thanks to a fundraising surge from liberals angered by Collins’ support for the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court two years ago.
In Texas, Democrats were choosing between M.J. Hegar, an Air Force veteran who has the support of Senate Democrats, and state Sen. Royce West in a runoff to determine who will take on Cornyn. Republicans were also deciding a number of nominees, including in an open seat in West Texas where Trump backed former White House doctor Ronny Jackson appears set to win the primary.
In terms of determining the balance of power in Washington, though, no race Tuesday may have been more consequential than the Maine primary. The Senate race there is one of a handful that could determine control of the chamber.