Tuberville gets a ride on Air Force One: Google

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The race for the United States Senate is on now that U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama has an opponent, a former Auburn football coach endorsed by President Donald J. Trump with no experience in politics and government.

Related: Alabama Senator Doug Jones Holds the Key to Victory in 2020 for Democrats in the United States Senate

The race turned out as expected, with Tommy Tuberville of Florida (where he resides, not Alabama) topping former Senator and Trump’s first attorney general Jeff Sessions of Mobile in the Republican primary runoff on Tuesday with a margin of about 61 percent to 39 percent.

Alabama Elections Results

Yet most of the national publicity focused on the likely departure from politics of Sessions, who has been derided by Trump since before he fired him for recusing himself from the Russian election interference investigation because he clearly had contacts with Russians during the campaign in which he was the first politician of any count to back Trump for president.

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“As a longtime senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions did nothing less than legitimize Donald. J. Trump as a credible Republican candidate for president, endorsing him when no other big names did and championing him to conservative voters. As Mr. Trump’s star rose, Mr. Sessions’s rose, too,” according to the New York Times. “But on Tuesday night, as he sought once again to become a senator from Alabama, a job he loved, Mr. Sessions came crashing to the ground — and all at the hands of Mr. Trump, his ally-turned-patron-turned-antagonist-turned-sworn enemy.”

Sessions was soundly defeated in large measure because Alabama conservative Republicans are still sticking with Trump, who enthusiastically supported the neophyte Tuberville while denigrating Sessions on Twitter.

“We’ve fought a good fight in this race,” Sessions said, addressing supporters at a small conference room at a Hampton Inn in Mobile. “I want to congratulate Tommy Tuberville,” he said, fighting back tears. “We must stand behind him in November.”

Sessions still insists he has no regrets about his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

“I followed the law,” he said, adding, “and I saved the president’s bacon in the process.”

Tuberville, who is typically running as an outsider who is not a politician, must now see how much of a politician he can become with only three and a half months to go before the general election on Nov. 3. He faces a smart, organized and well-known and well-funded incumbent who has spent the past two and a half years doing the job as senator and shoring up institutional support in the state, who has even been honored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for his bipartisanship.

Polls show the race in a dead heat, but the Times and other national news outlets and pundits still call Jones “the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for election in November.” You will recall that Jones narrowly defeated Roy S. Moore, a former State Supreme Court justice, in the 2017 special election to fill the seat vacated by Sessions. It was probably the creepy story about Moore being banned from the Gadsden Mall that sealed his fate, so who knows what can emerge from the shadows between now and November about Tuberville?

On Monday night, when it was clear that Tuberville would come out ahead, Trump reportedly held a conference call with the candidate and his supporters and ravaged Sessions one last time.

“He had his chance and he blew it,” he said, once again endorsing Tuberville and saying the former coach “is going to do a job like you haven’t seen,” adding: “He’s going to have a cold, direct line into my office. That I can tell you.”

Tuberville, addressing his own supporters Tuesday night, accused Jones of upholding “New York values, Chicago values, liberal Democrat values” while calling Mr. Trump “the best president of my lifetime.”

Doug Jones Responds

In fund raising email blasts to his supporters, Senator Jones said, “It’s official: I’m running against Tommy Tuberville.”

“The race is going to come down to unity versus division,” he said, “and we know Alabama will choose to come together.”

Even with the coronavirus still raging and spreading, and major economic problems still on the horizon, Jones said he was looking forward to he next part of the campaign.

“This race will take many twists and turns,” he said. “Outside groups are going to pour money into this race. Mitch McConnell and his allies are going to do everything they can to beat me. Starting today, they are spending almost $4 million on television attacking me.”

While the polling shows the race in a tie, he said, there are indicators that the people of Alabama and the country are tired of all the divisiveness.

“I will continue working hard to save lives and livelihoods as we tackle the COVID-19 crisis together,” Jones said. “We can’t afford to treat our seniors and those with pre-existing conditions as expendable – which is why I’m working to expand Medicaid so our friends, neighbors, and loved ones are covered.”

Tuberville’s victory was the most prominent result in voting across three states on Tuesday. In Maine, Sara Gideon won the Democratic nomination for Senate and will challenge Senator Susan Collins in November, in what would be one of most closely contested, and expensive, races in the country. And in Texas voters in both parties went to the polls to decide runoffs in several House races and Democrats selected M.J. Hegar, an Air Force veteran, to challenge Senator John Cornyn in November, according to the Times, which labeled Alabama’s Republican runoff the “most negative in the country,” according to Joe Trippi with the Doug Jones campaign.

“Voters in Alabama are clearly sick of it, because Doug’s in a statistical dead heat despite his opponents spending millions going negative,” he said. “It’s clear from everything we’re seeing that no matter who wins, they’re going to double down on division. Jeff Sessions tweeted a QAnon meme yesterday. Tommy Tuberville is trying to win by running as far to the extreme right as possible. And the ads have been vicious.”

He asked voters to look at the contrasts between the Republican ads and what Jones has been doing and saying.

“We’ve been up on the airwaves too – with Senator Jones looking you in the eye and telling you the truth,” he said. “He’s got our backs, and no one else’s. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth watching.”

With all the division and the chaos in Washington, he said, it’s really remarkable that Doug’s opponents have spent every dollar in the past four months adding to it.

“While the contrast with Doug couldn’t be more clear, it’s getting harder and harder to tell Sessions and Tuberville apart,” he said.

Both would eliminate health insurance for hundreds of thousands of Alabamians with pre-existing conditions in the middle of a pandemic. Neither have put together any kind of a plan to save lives and save livelihoods

“Both seem eager to attack China,” he said, “but have no plan on how to bring jobs back to America. Neither of them have any record of actually getting things done – as their ads have shown, they are far more comfortable staying in their corners and lobbing attacks instead of finding solutions.”

So the race is on. Dog help is all, and bless the United States of America in this cataclysmic time.