Tommy Tuberville defeats former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Alabama Senate runoff.

Tommy Tuberville. Politico.

Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville has defeated former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Alabama's Senate runoff. Politico. Tuberville had the support of President Trump and came in first in the March 3rd primary, beating out Sessions and failed Senate candidate Roy Moore. Tuberville was widely expected to win but fears of the Coronavirus might have depressed turnout enough to give Sessions a chance. The campaign between Tuberville and Sessions was mostly a debate about President Trump, largely because Sessions was widely considered a failure after Trump appointed him as Attorney General. 

My Comment:

Just a quick post about this race. As expected Sessions lost, and as of this writing, it looks like he is going to lose fairly spectacularly. The returns I have seen, at 67% reporting, has Sessions losing 60-40. It's pretty clear that Alabama wasn't interested in seeing Jeff Sessions return to the Senate. 

I do think that trusting Jeff Sessions was the biggest mistake that President Trump made. Not only did it result in the Russia fiasco, which defined the first three years of his term, it cost Republicans a rock solid senate seat. Some of that was due to Roy Moore being a bad candidate that was defeated due to his scandals, but the fact remains that if Sessions had stayed in the Senate there is no doubt that the Alabama Senate seat wouldn't even be in discussion. 

I don't think many of President Trump's fans would forgive Sessions for his term at Attorney General. Though he was known as being very pro-Trump in his policies in his actions he was anything but. Instead of focusing on the crimes of the Democrats, the obvious and odious corruption at the Justice Department and his signature issue, immigration, Sessions focused on not much. Other than attacking legal pot dealers, which was nobodies priority but his own. 

Can Tuberville beat Doug Jones now? I think so. Jones might have carved a path out for himself if he had taken a "blue dog" Democrat focus. Alabama is a conservative state and though they are unlikely to vote for a Democrat they might do so if the candidate is conservative and the opponent is weak. But instead Jones went as far left as the rest of the party. On paper this means that Jones is done. 

If I have any worry at all though it's that Tuberville hasn't been vetted all that much. I don't think there are any real scandals but to be honest, I don't know much about Tuberville. Roy Moore seemed like a safe candidate as well but in the end he turned out to be the worst candidate possible. My hope is that there aren't any skeletons in his closet and that he easily beats Doug Jones.