Jeff Sessions Loses Comeback Bid For His Old Senate Seat
Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville won Alabama’s GOP Senate primary on Tuesday, defeating Jeff Sessions after President Donald Trump endorsed Tuberville instead of his onetime attorney general who had been a close ideological ally.
Tuberville is now the favorite to defeat Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November’s elections, which would be a key Republican pickup in the battle for Senate control. Trump won the deeply conservative, racially polarized state by 28% four years ago.
The race between Tuberville, 65, and Sessions, 73, who had been elected to the Senate four times by Alabama voters and had been a revered political figure in the state before joining the administration, was wholly defined by Trump’s wishes and served as a demonstration of his dominance over the party’s base.
Trump praised Tuberville again not long after The Associated Press called the race.
Wow, just called! @TTuberville - Tommy Tuberville WON big against Jeff Sessions. Will be a GREAT Senator for the incredible people of Alabama. @DougJones is a terrible Senator who is just a Super Liberal puppet for Schumer & Pelosi. Represents Alabama poorly. On to November 3rd.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2020
While Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump in 2016 and provided much of the policy framework to go with Trump’s hard-line anti-immigrant, white nationalist rhetoric, Trump never forgave him for quickly recusing himself, as attorney general, from the investigation into the Russian efforts to influence and skew the 2016 election. Sessions’ move led to Robert Mueller’s appointment as the special counsel to lead the probe that was a prolonged thorn in Trump’s side.
Shortly after the first round of primary voting in March in which no candidate exceeded the 50% vote count needed to win outright, Trump endorsed Tuberville in the runoff. That turned what could have been a close race ― Tuberville had earned 33% of the vote to...