“Jeff Sessions announced on Thursday that he’s running for the U.S. Senate seat he gave up when he became President Donald Trump’s first attorney general in 2017. But his campaign announcement video seems aimed at an audience of one: Trump,l the HuffPost reports.
“Sessions used the video to remind Trump of how loyal ― or at least silent ― he’d been since leaving the Justice Department.”
Before former Attorney General Jeff Sessions jumped into the Alabama Senate race this week, President Trump sent word to him “through allies that he would publicly attack him if he ran,” the New York Times reports.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R) is expected to announce plans to run for his former Senate seat before Friday, two sources told The Hill.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R-AL) “has been taking meetings and making calls regarding a run for his old Senate seat,” Yellowhammer News reports.
“He is now strongly considering mounting a candidacy.”
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball has two Senate ratings changes this week: The most vulnerable senator, Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), moves from Toss-up to Leans Republican, while Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) moves from Leans Republican to Toss-up.
Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) tweeted that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “should go back to Somalia” after the Minnesota lawmaker called him a child molester.
He also called the freshman congresswoman an “avowed muslim” and a “sworn enemy of Israel.”
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) “elaborated on his comments about television’s preoccupation with ‘homosexual activities,’ saying that media coverage of the U.S. women soccer team’s World Cup championship has focused too much on the players’ sexual orientation,” the Birmingham News reports.
“There are no more good TV shows on like ‘Gunsmoke,’ ‘Bonanza,’ ‘The Virginian,’ ‘Andy Griffith,’ ‘I Love Lucy.’ We don’t have those shows anymore. We’re too interested in homosexual activities. We’re too interested in seeing how this family’s finding a way to mess on this family or to see how people are trying to date on TV, or having wife-swapping on TV. That’s what we watch. When we push back against that, and we quit allowing it to be in our homes – that’s how those changes have occurred because we’ve allowed them to slowly but surely come into our lives.”
— Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R), quoted by Yellowhammer News, on the need to change popular culture.
Roy Moore’s FEC disclosure form shows that in the first ten days of his 2020 U.S. Senate campaign in Alabama he raised less than $17,000.
Just three of the itemized donations over $200 were from residents of Alabama.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) told The Hill that President Trump is not on board with a potential Senate bid by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Said Shelby: “I talked to the president about it too… about if Sessions ran, he was not encouraging. How do I say it? He was not on board, OK?”
A lawsuit says Roy Moore ‘likely failed’ a December 2017 polygraph he took in an effort to clear his name from accusations made against him by women during the Senate race that year, the Birmingham News reports.
A new Cygnal poll in Alabama shows Roy Moore taking just 13% of the vote in the Republican Senate primary, trailing Tommy Tuberville, who leads with 29%, and Rep. Bradley Byrne (R), who has 21%.
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R), who launched his campaign Tuesday, begins with 12% of the vote and another 22% are still undecided.
Three people with direct knowledge of Roy Moore’s (R) thinking tell the Associated Press that they expect him to jump into the 2020 race for U.S. Senate in Alabama.
The Birmingham News confirms Moore is running.
Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore (R) plans to announce his plans for U.S. Senate on Thursday, a decision that could shape the Republican field for the next nine months of the primary race, USA Today reports.
A defiant Roy Moore brushed aside Donald Trump’s warning not to run for Senate again, telling Politico on Wednesday that Alabama voters are capable of deciding for themselves whether he’s fit for office.
Said Moore: “The president doesn’t control who votes for the United States Senate in Alabama. People in Alabama are smarter than that. They elect the senator from Alabama, not from Washington, D.C.”
President Trump came out against Roy Moore running for Senate in Alabama again, arguing the former judge “cannot win.”
Tweeted Trump: “Republicans cannot allow themselves to again lose the Senate seat in the Great State of Alabama. This time it will be for Six Years, not just Two.”
He added: “I have NOTHING against Roy Moore, and unlike many other Republican leaders, wanted him to win. But he didn’t, and probably won’t. If Alabama does not elect a Republican to the Senate in 2020, many of the incredible gains that we have made during my Presidency may be lost, including our Pro-Life victories. Roy Moore cannot win, and the consequences will be devastating….Judges and Supreme Court Justices!”
Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL), who launched his U.S. Senate campaign in February, told The Hill he’s spoken to GOP sources close to Roy Moore who said the controversial former Alabama judge will announce his candidacy for the Senate in the coming days.
“Conservative lightning rod Roy Moore of Alabama, narrow loser of a turbulent special election for Senate in 2017, is considering a fresh run next year,” the AP reports.
“National Republican leaders are signaling they’ll again try preventing their party from nominating the twice-removed state jurist whose campaign was battered by allegations of long-ago sexual harassment of teenagers.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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