Runoff Likely to Decide GOP Challenger for Alabama Senate Seat

Roy Moore, a controversial judge twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court, trailed with about 5% support, according to the poll. Moore ran against Jones in the 2017 special election to fill the seat after Sessions vacated it but his campaign imploded because of allegations of decades-old sexual impropriety.

"Doug Jones did not win that seat. Roy Moore lost it,” Angi Stalnaker, a conservative political consultant, said in an interview. She added Moore’s loss was largely due to Republican voters writing in names of other candidates.

While all three Republicans are different candidates, Stalnaker said, they all vow support for Trump’s agenda even as the president has remained silent about the race.

“What you have are commercials of three men in an absolute bro love-fest with the president. The question is, which one does the president take to the prom? And only he can answer that,” she said.

Neither the White House nor the Trump campaign returned a request for comment.

A few minutes past noon on Tuesday, Tuberville greeted the supporters waiting in the back room of the restaurant outside of Decatur. For the past several weeks, the candidate’s “The People vs. The Swamp” bus tour has stopped at rural eateries like Libby’s across the state, the bus acting like a mobile billboard.

He bills himself as a Washington outsider – who “ain't got Donald Trump money, but I ain't got to worry about it anymore" – and has pledged to donate his senatorial salary to veterans.

The country is in trouble, Tuberville said, as evidenced by the “socialist communist” the Democratic Party is about to make their presidential nominee, referring to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The former coach added young voters are generally more willing to back progressive candidates.

“It's not going to make any difference how good a job Donald Trump does, which he's doing a great job,” Tuberville said. “It's not going to make any difference how low our taxes [are] or how big your house is or how many cars you got, if we don't get control of the Department of Education.”

Tuberville explained he wants to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, kicking its responsibility to the state departments of education that could better craft school policy for each individual state.

As for the kind of federal judges he plans to help confirm if he was elected senator, Tuberville said there are “three things: Christian, conservative, constitutionalist. Don't make the law up, that's the most important thing.”

Later that evening, SeBro Realty hosted a get-out-the-vote rally for Congressman Byrne in a converted garden center featuring a handsome front porch that wraps around three sides of the building in Hueytown, a dozen miles southwest of Birmingham.

At the campaign stop of Byrne’s “Fire Doug Jones Tour,” the congressman representing Mobile and communities near the Gulf of Mexico said he’s holding 21 events in the week leading up to Super Tuesday.

“We’ve been campaigning for a year, and we’ve covered this state from top to bottom. I’ve been to all 67 counties,” Byrne told two dozen supporters.

The mood at the Byrne rally was casual and even festive, as attendees wore Mardi Gras beads to go along with their various pro-Trump caps and jackets. After a brief introduction, Byrne took questions from the audience in a wide-ranging Q&A that covered everything from the coronavirus to climate change.

In November, Byrne told Courthouse News if he were senator he would look to confirm federal judges constrained by the law – the kind of judges the upper chamber has confirmed since Trump took office.

"I want judges that are going to read the law as it as written, apply it as written and not put their own interpretation on things,” said Byrne, who once unsuccessfully ran for Alabama governor.

The topic seemingly most important to the attendees in Hueytown, however, was the president, and Byrne made sure they knew just where he stands.

“I voted with him 97% of the time,” Byrne said proudly of his affiliation with Trump. “It’s a fight and we’ve got to figure out what team we’re on, and get on that team and be a team player. I’m a team player.”

Follow @jcksndnl

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit