Strange over the other conservative candidates running just one week before election day.
“Senator
Luther Strange has done a great job representing the people of the Great State
of Alabama,” Trump tweeted. “He has my complete and total endorsement!”
The primary to fill the seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions is set for next Tuesday, Aug. 15. A run-off will be held Sept. 26 if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, which seems likely in the crowded field though polling has been scarce.
Trump's
endorsement is a major blow to U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, a conservative lawmaker who
has been endorsed by pro-Trump figures, including Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin
and Sean Hannity.
It's also a
win for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose political operation has
been boosting Strange while running ads portraying Brooks as not sufficiently
pro-Trump.
“Mr.
President, what an honor,” Strange tweeted after Trump’s announcement. “Thank
you so much for your support and confidence. Proud to work with you to #MAGA
#ALsen.”
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During the
2016 Republican presidential primary, Brooks supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz,
something his opponents have used against him. A super PAC with ties to
McConnell, the Senate Leadership Fund, has been running television ads of
Brooks’ past critical comments about Trump.
Strange, the
state’s former attorney general, was temporarily appointed to the seat in April
after Sessions joined the Trump administration. His opponents have used that
appointment from former Gov. Robert Bentley against him: Strange’s office was
investigating Bentley at the time the governor made him senator. Bentley has
since resigned from office in scandal.
The contest
has been defined largely over candidates emphasizing their support of the
president.
Like Strange
and Brooks, the other major Republican in the race, former Alabama Supreme
Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, has also emphasized his support for Trump in a
state where the president remains widely popular.
Discussing
Trump’s election to the White House, Strange said this month: "I consider
it a biblical miracle that he's there."
Brooks has
vowed to fight for funding for Trump’s border wall. “And if I have to
filibuster on the Senate floor, I’ll even read the King James Bible until the
wall is funded,” Brooks said in a recent ad.
Moore told
the Associated Press in May: “God puts people in positions in positions he
wants…I believe he sent Donald Trump in there to do what Donald Trump can do.”
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