What Georgia And Alabama Voters Think Of Their New Abortion Laws

The new laws restricting abortion in Alabama and Georgia made a big splash in the news over the past few weeks. Since the laws were passed there have been numerous polls showing that voters nationally oppose the measures. Of course, the new laws won’t affect most Americans so I wondered what the citizens of Alabama and Georgia who will actually live under the laws, assuming they are allowed by the courts to take effect, thought of them.

When you look for polls of Georgia and Alabama voters about the new laws, it’s quickly apparent that few have thought to check the opinion of local voters. In March and April, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution surveyed Georgia voters about the fetal heartbeat bill that was pending in the legislature at the time. The poll found that Georgia voters were closely split on the bill, with 43 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed. In addition to the plurality of total voters, opponents of the bill also felt more strongly about it. Thirty-nine percent were strongly opposed while 25 percent strongly supported the legislation.

On the larger question of abortion, 70 percent of Georgia voters opposed overturning Roe v. Wade, however, only 22 percent said that abortion should be legal in all cases. Voters who oppose all abortions were also a minority at 10 percent. The majority of voters supported legal abortion with restrictions. Thirty-five percent said it should be legal in most cases and 25 percent said it should be illegal in most cases.

There does not seem to be any recent public polling of Alabama voters available about the abortion law. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood released details of a 2018 poll by ALG Research, a Democratic polling firm, that showed results similar to the AJC poll of Georgia voters.

In the poll, slightly less than a third of Alabamans supported positions that were consistent with the state’s new law. Sixteen percent said that abortion should only be permitted when the mother’s life is in danger and 15 percent said that it should be banned outright.

Again, most voters took a moderate position with 49 percent favoring restricted abortion. Twenty percent said that abortion should be legal in most cases while 29 percent said that it should be allowed only in limited cases, “such as rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is endangered.” Only 16 percent favored unrestricted abortion.

The lion’s share of support for the laws is from Republicans, who Morning Consult recently found support the measures by a 57-31 percent margin. Even among Republicans, however, there is widespread support (45 percent) for exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. These exceptions are notably lacking from the Alabama law.

The bottom line is that passage of the laws was a principled stand for pro-life principles by state Republicans, but it wasn’t a popular stand. Even at home, the new restrictions are outside of the mainstream. This is particularly true of the Alabama law.  

When a party goes against public opinion to force through legislation that is popular with the base, but unpopular with voters at large, it often leads to a backlash. This raises the possibility that Republican legislators will pay a political price for their votes next year, even if courts strike down the new laws before they even take effect.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Abortion Clinics To Alabama: Drop Dead

Alabama had three abortion clinics prior to this week’s passage of a new law that essentially banned the practice. Now the state has… three abortion clinics. The law doesn’t go into effect for six months, but the Alabama abortionists say that even then they have no plans to close their doors.

“We've been through this fight over and over again,” Dalton Johnson, owner of Alabama's Women's Center in Huntsville told AL.com. “Our main goal is to keep the women apprised that we will be challenging it in court.”

At Johnson’s abortion clinic, two doctors perform about 2,000 abortions annually. Alabama’s Women’s Center is the only abortion clinic in the state that performs abortions up to the state’s previous limit of 20 weeks. As a result, the center sees women from across Alabama as well as surrounding states. After the law takes effect, performing abortions illegally will be a Class A felony punishable by between 10 and 99 years in prison.

“We don't see any interruption in any kind of service whatsoever,” agreed an employee of Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery.

The abortion providers are gambling that the courts will issue an injunction to prevent the law from taking effect on schedule. An employee at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa said, “If the law goes into effect . . . we're not criminals; we would not be able to stay open, but until it's all resolved, we will be here.”

The ACLU has already announced plans to file a lawsuit to prevent the law from going into force. Rebecca Seung-Bickley told AL.com, “This will never go into effect, as long as ACLU is in litigation.”

Indeed, the purpose of the Alabama law seems to be to troll for legal challenges in order to send a test case to the Supreme Court. After the appointment of two new justices by President Trump, pro-life legislators believe that the time may be right to launch a challenge to Roe v. Wade.

Rep. Terri Collins, the Republican member of Alabama’s House of Representatives who sponsored the bill, told the Washington Post, “This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection. I have prayed my way through this bill. This is the way we get where we want to get eventually.”

Incidentally, Collins, the author of the bill, is a woman.

Whether the Court reviews the Alabama abortion ban or not, it is likely that an abortion case will be reviewed over the next few years. Several states have recently enacted heartbeat bills that prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. Other states are considering similar legislation. All are likely to be challenged by pro-abortion activist groups.

The best-case scenario for the pro-life movement would be for the Court to take at least one of the pending abortion cases and strike down Roe in its entirety. This would send the abortion battle back to the states. Some states, such as New York, would enact very liberal abortion policies while others, such as Alabama, would ban the practice.

A more likely outcome is that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh take a more incremental approach. The narrow constitutionalist majority will likely agree that Roe was a bad decision but will be reluctant to toss it out abruptly after almost 50 years. We can expect the Court to allow states more latitude in restricting and regulating abortion but still stop short of allowing a full ban.

In either case, the abortion battle is far from over. In one case, statehouses will become the new battlefield while, in the other, the focus will continue to be on the Supreme Court. The new abortion laws are merely one more skirmish in a long war.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Brace Yourself: More Abortion Laws Are Coming

It has been a bad week for abortion proponents and it just keeps getting worse. After Georgia passed its heartbeat bill last week, Alabama followed with an even more restrictive bill that was signed into law on Wednesday. Now it seems that more states are poised to follow in passing bills that severely limit abortions within their borders.

The Associated Press reports that the Missouri Senate approved a bill by a 24-10 vote that would ban abortions after eight weeks. The bill contains exceptions for medical emergencies but not for cases of rape or incest. The bill must now be approved by the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans, before it can be signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson, also a Republican.

Another state, Louisiana, is also considering a heartbeat bill that would ban abortions on unborn babies old enough to have a detectable heartbeat. The Louisiana bill contains exceptions to prevent the mother’s death, if there is “a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function,” or if the pregnancy is deemed “medically futile,” but also omits exceptions for rape and incest per the AP. The bill has been approved by House and Senate committees but has not yet been voted on by either chamber.

While much of the recent abortion debate is centered on the lack of exceptions for rape and incest, the Guttmacher Institute found that abortions are rarely performed for those reasons. In a large study that ranged from 1987 through 2004, only one percent of abortions were due to rape and less than half a percent were due to incest.

In addition to Georgia and Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio have also passed new laws aimed at reducing the number of abortions. The laws are designed to test the Supreme Court’s adherence to the Roe v. Wade precedent in the wake of the addition of two new Trump-appointed justices, Neal Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. It is likely that the Court will strike down portions of the laws, if not rule them entirely unconstitutional, but a ruling would let legislators know how far they can go in regulating abortion in their states.

Regardless of the uproar, the laws have strong support among Republicans who control the state legislatures in these states. With the failure of the national GOP to defund Planned Parenthood and two new friendly justices on the Supreme Court, pro-life advocates hope that the tide may finally be about to turn.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Alabama May Have Just Saved the GOP

Last night, the Republican Party got its first break in over a year.

The defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama may sting for a while, but it may just be the wakeup call that the GOP needed. To lose a Senate seat in one of the most conservative states in the South is quite an accomplishment. There will be plenty of blame and finger-pointing to go around, but ultimately the fault lies with Roy Moore himself, along with the people who elevated him to the nomination.

The candidate was obviously never properly vetted by Republicans, but if the Washington Post could find a handful of women from Moore’s past, why couldn’t his Republican primary adversaries? Perhaps Moore was considered untouchable in Alabama conservative circles for his high-profile resistance to the removal of the Ten Commandments monument and the implementation of same-sex marriage, but, in truth, these were examples of judicial activism that should not have been applauded by people who support the rule of law. There are ways to resist bad rulings, but Moore’s actions were not appropriate for his position.

Even beyond the obvious, there were signs of skeletons in Moore’s closet if Republicans had cared to look. In 2002, amid the Ten Commandments controversy, the Montgomery Advertiser hinted that Moore’s associates had stories to tell, but were biding their time.  “Some of those who worked with Moore roll their eyes when asked about him but keep their mouths shut,” Todd Kleffman wrote. “There are plenty of stories to tell, the longtime secretaries, parole officials and lawyers said, but not on the record and not now, while Moore sits atop the state court system and controls its purse strings.”

Part of the blame for Moore also lies with former Gov. Robert Bentley (R-Ala.), who appointed another weak candidate, Luther Strange, to fill the Senate seat of Jeff Sessions when he was tapped to become attorney general by Donald Trump. Strange was tainted by Bentley’s corruption as well as purported ties to the Republican establishment. Even though President Trump endorsed Strange, Moore attacked him by linking him to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). In a healthy party, ties to party leaders are a good thing, not a liability.

Steve Bannon and the anti-establishment wing of the Republican Party also share the blame. In recent years, the Republican establishment has been subject to its own derangement syndrome in which many members of the Republican base put party leaders on a level with Democrats. This intra-party feuding led directly to the nomination of both Donald Trump and Roy Moore in primaries where a main qualification for many Republican voters was that candidates should be from outside the Republican mainstream.

While both Trump and Moore were Republican outsiders, they were also outside the American mainstream. Donald Trump eked out a victory because enough voters in the right places saw him as less threatening than Hillary Clinton. In Moore’s case, his questionable record combined with the allegations of sexual misconduct and a bevy of embarrassing statements and ultimately turned much of his own party against him. Even President Trump, at a September rally for Strange, expressed doubts about Moore’s ability to win a general election.

The lesson that Republicans should learn from Roy Moore is that “at least he isn’t Hillary” only works when a candidate is running against Hillary. It doesn’t work when the opposition candidate is Doug Jones, a decent man with a good record, and the Republican candidate is a man who seemed to think fondly of the slavery era in a state where blacks make up more than a quarter of the population.

In the past few years, Republicans seem to have forgotten the Buckley Rule that conservative voters should nominate the most conservative candidate who can win. If conservative voters take this lesson to heart, they will nominate decent, sane, mainstream conservatives in the primaries that will be held in a few months. If they truly learn the lesson of Roy Moore, they will reject candidates from Steve Bannon’s crackpot wing of the party.

Roy Moore’s loss may have come at just the right time for the party. Many signs are pointing to a Democrat wave in 2018. It may already be too late to stop the Democrat landslide, but if Republicans look for candidates that appeal to voters outside the anti-establishment wing of the GOP they may be able to prevent a total wipeout and at least maintain control of the Senate.

In the short term, there will be anger against the Republicans who crossed party lines to vote for Doug Jones or who cast their ballots for a write-in candidate. If Republican voters don’t insist on good candidates, they will continue getting candidates who rely on the “at least he’s not [insert Democrat here” argument. Rather than betraying the Republican Party and traditional Republican principles, the Republicans who had the moral courage to rebel against a deeply flawed and embarrassing candidate may have actually saved the Republican Party.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Scarborough On Bannon: 'A Southern Man Don't Need Him Around Anyhow'

Know your audience and your subject is basic advice for any public speaker. Violating that rule led to an embarrassing gaffe for Steve Bannon as he stumped for Roy Moore in Midland City, Ala yesterday. During his speech, Bannon decided to riff on Trump critic, Joe Scarborough, with embarrassing results. A tweet by Jonathan Allen of NBC News tells what happened next.

In Midland City, Alabama, Steve Bannon goes after @JoeNBC, saying he got into better schools than Joe could have—Georgetown and Harvard. This might be the wrong place for that attack: Joe went to the University of Alabama.

— Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) December 12, 2017

Before attacking Scarborough, Bannon should have doublechecked where the MSNBC host went to school. What are the odds that a talk show host that Bannon decided to vilify in Alabama was a graduate of the University of Alabama? In the case of Joe Scarborough, the odds were 100 percent to Bannon’s dismay.

Scarborough quickly responded with a series of tweets, beginning with a simple school slogan.

ROLL. DAMN. TIDE. https://t.co/AUj9U3CihU

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) December 12, 2017

A second tweet mocked Bannon’s brag about attending Georgetown and Harvard. Ivy League schools are not well respected by Southern voters. The resentment of carpetbagging Yankees is deeply ingrained in Alabama as well as many other parts of the South. Attending Harvard won’t necessarily hurt your reputation, but bragging about it certainly will.

Hey Bannon, you only went to Harvard because you couldn't get into Alabama. #RollDamnTide https://t.co/AUj9U3CihU

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) December 12, 2017

Scarborough delivered a body blow by paying homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic Southern anthem, “Sweet Home Alabama.”  The song was written in 1974 as a response to Neil Young’s “Southern Man” and includes a line that describes just how much importance Southerners attach to Yankee opinions about their culture. While Bannon, a native Virginian, isn’t technically a Yankee by birth, he is closely associated with New York these days.

A Southern Man don't need him around anyhow. #SweetHomeAlabama https://t.co/AUj9U3CihU

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) December 12, 2017

In a final tweet, Scarborough drove home the point that Bannon, the pseudopopulist, is in reality a New York banker who worked for Goldman Sachs. The investment banking firm has long been a bogeyman for many on the right. While many politicians, from Ted Cruz to Hillary Clinton, were criticized for ties to Goldman Sachs, Donald Trump and Steve Bannon’s ties to the company have received little attention. Scarborough’s use of the colloquialism, “reckon,” just twists the knife.

I reckon if I'd gotten into one of Steve's fancy schools outside of Alabama, I could've been one of them Goldman Sachs populists too. 🎩 https://t.co/wMNdvKWPSM

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) December 12, 2017

While Steve Bannon’s case of foot-in-mouth disease won’t make or break Roy Moore, it is characteristic of the unforced errors and poor vetting that plague Bannon-backed candidates. Roy Moore’s background was replete with red flags that he would be a poor candidate in the general election. In Arizona, Bannon supports Kelli Ward, a state legislator widely mocked for her association with conspiracy theories. Paul Nehlen, another Bannon protégé who lost in a landslide to Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), was recently seen on Twitter telling John Podhoretz to “eat a bullet.” Stay classy, Nehlen.

Bannon’s Alabama gaffe is just one more example of poor research and planning by the Breitbart publisher and former White House strategist. Bannon’s picks, while often popular in GOP circles, are often poison at the ballot box in general elections. If Republicans follow Bannon, the party is likely to find itself on the way to electoral oblivion.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Alabama Sen. Shelby Rejects Roy Moore As Another Embarrassing Statement Surfaces

The weekend before the closely-watched Alabama senatorial election, another scandal emerged for Republican Roy Moore. An audio clip surfaced from an appearance by Moore on a conspiracy-related internet talk show in which Moore agreed with the hosts that voiding all constitutional amendments after the 10^th “would eliminate many problems.”

Moore’s comments came on a 2011 episode of the “Aroostook Watchmen,” a right-wing internet talk show based in Maine. On an audio recording obtained by CNN, Moore responded to a statement from one of the hosts advocating an amendment that would void every amendment that was not part of the original Bill of Rights.

“That would eliminate many problems,” Moore replied. “You know people don't understand how some of these amendments have completely tried to wreck the form of government that our forefathers intended.”

Moore specifically cited the 17^th Amendment, which changed the process for electing senators. Originally, senators were selected by state legislatures, but the amendment made it so that senators were chosen directly by the people of the state. Following the host’s lead, Moore also criticized the 14^th Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War and includes the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.

“The danger in the 14th Amendment, which was to restrict, it has been a restriction on the states using the first Ten Amendments by and through the 14th Amendment,” Moore said. “To restrict the states from doing something that the federal government was restricted from doing and allowing the federal government to do something which the first Ten Amendments prevented them from doing. If you understand the incorporation doctrine used by the courts and what it meant. You'd understand what I'm talking about.”

“For example, the right to keep and bear arms, the First Amendment, freedom of press, liberty,” Moore continued, “Those various freedoms and restrictions have been imposed on the states through the 14th Amendment. And yet the federal government is violating just about every one of them saying that -- they don't, they don't -- are not restrained by them.”

There is a total of 27 amendments to the Constitution. Some other important amendments that come after the 10^th included the abolition of slavery (13^th), guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race (15th), extending the right to vote to women (19^th), and the prohibition of poll taxes (24^th).

Moore did not specifically advocate a return to slavery, but he was previously criticized for another quote in the Los Angeles Times from September 2017 in which he seemed to downplay the institution.  An audience member asked Moore when he thought America was last great. Moore answered, “I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another.... Our families were strong, our country had a direction.”

While the clip did not specifically mention the 19^th Amendment, Roy Moore did co-author a legal textbook that argues that women should not elected to public office.

In a response to CNN, the Moore campaign denied that the candidate ever supported the repeal of 16 amendments. “Once again, the media is taking a discussion about the overall framework for the separation of powers as laid out in the constitution to twist Roy Moore's position on specific issues,” a spokesman said in an email. “Roy Moore does not now nor has he ever favored limiting an individual's right to vote, and as a judge, he was noted for his fairness and for being a champion of civil rights.”

“Judge Moore has expressed concern, as many other conservatives have, that the historical trend since the ratification of the Bill of Rights has been for federal empowerment over state empowerment,” the campaign spokesman said.

In the same episode of “Aroostook Watchmen,” Moore seems to embrace several conspiracy theories as well. Moore implied that Barack Obama was not a citizen and expressed support for “new hearings into what really happened on 9/11.” Moore has long questioned the validity of Obama’s birth certificate including a statement in December 2016.

The Moore campaign told CNN that he “believes that Islamic terrorists were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, [has] made rebuilding the military one of his key campaign purposes, and is the only Senate candidate with experience serving in a combat zone.”

The combination of Moore’s past and his embarrassing behavior have led many Republicans to reject their party’s candidate. On Sunday, Alabama’s senior Senator, Republican Richard Shelby, revealed that he did not vote for Roy Moore.

“I'd rather see the Republican win, but I'd rather see a Republican write-in,” Shelby said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I couldn't vote for Roy Moore. I didn't vote for Roy Moore.”

Shelby did not say who he voted for, but Lee Busby, a retired Marine, entered the race as a conservative write-in candidate in November. There is speculation that Shelby may have voted for Col. Busby.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Apparently Dated His Wife While She Was Still Married

Roy Moore, the scandal-plagued Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama, may have dated his wife while she was still married to her first husband in spite of claims to the contrary. An analysis of court documents and Moore’s own claims about their courtship indicates that Moore and Kayla Kisor may have met before Kayla filed for divorce and dated before the divorce was final.

The Washington Examiner recently pointed out the apparent contradictions between Moore’s account, published in his 2005 book, “So Help Me God,” and court records from Kayla Kisor’s divorce case. Moore wrote that, after meeting Kayla at church shortly before Christmas 1984, “I was determined to get to know her, but Kayla, divorced and with a beautiful little girl, Heather, who was nearly a year old, was not interested in a relationship with anyone.”

However, when the Examiner looked into the details of Kisor’s case, they found that she had only separated from her first husband, John Charles Heald, on Dec. 1, 1984. Kisor did not file for divorce until Dec. 28, 1984 and it was several months before her divorce was finalized on April 19, 1985.

“Regardless of when they met, Judge and Kayla did not date while she was still with her ex-husband or legally married,” Moore campaign spokesman Brett Doster told the Examiner.

In Moore’s account, he and Kayla began dating “soon after” she visited the law office of one of Moore’s colleagues “early in the new year” of 1985. According to Moore, the couple dated “for about a year.”

A source familiar with Kayla’s first marriage told the Examiner that Moore gave Kayla’s daughter a puppy for Valentine’s Day in 1985, two months before Kayla’s divorce was final. It was “was always an assumption” that the couple dated while Kayla was still legally married, the source said.

Moore and Kayla were married on Dec. 14, 1985, approximately a year after their first meeting and eight months after Kayla’s divorce became final. Roy Moore was 38 and Kayla was 24 at the time.

Kayla was 21 at the time of her first marriage, which lasted two-and-a-half years. Her petition for divorce cited “cruel treatment during the marriage.”

Roy Moore has been accused by numerous women of harassing teenage girls in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In some cases, the women say that Moore touched them inappropriately. One of the accusations of sexual assault came from a 14-year-old girl.

AL.com provides a further description of Moore’s 1984 meeting with Kisor. “Sitting with her mother on the sofa against the wall was a beautiful young woman,” Moore wrote in his book. “I learned that her name was Kayla.”

Moore wrote that he had met Kayla previously, but did not specify when. He did describe the occasion: “Many years before, I had attended a dance recital at Gadsden State Junior College. I remembered one of the special dances performed by a young woman whose first and last names began with the letter 'K.' It was something I had never forgotten. Could that young woman have been Kayla Kisor? Anxious to meet her, I began with the line, 'Haven't we met somewhere before?’”

In an interview cited by Newsweek earlier this year, Moore said, “I was standing at the back of the auditorium and I saw her at the front and I remember her name, it was Kayla Kisor, K.K. It was, oh gosh, eight years later or something, I met her and when she told me her name I remembered K.K.”

Eight years prior to their 1984 meeting would have been about 1976 or 1977. Moore would have been 29 and Kayla 15 at the time of their first meeting. Beverly Young Nelson, who accused Moore of assaulting her in a car when she was 16, was a high school sophomore in the same class as Kayla Kisor in 1977.

Moore’s spokesman said the questions about the discrepancies from the Washington Examiner were “really scraping the bottom of the barrel.” The Washington Examiner is a conservative newspaper.

The Examiner noted that Moore’s campaign has attacked the credibility of his accusers “based on alleged inconsistencies in marginal details of their accounts.” The Moore campaign has called Moore’s signature in a yearbook a forgery and questioned such details as locations of telephones and names of restaurants.

“Amid an outpouring of misconduct allegations, Moore’s campaign has clearly set the standard that details are important and should be vetted rigorously,” The Examiner responded. “Why, then, should the inconsistencies surrounding Moore’s story not draw his own credibility into question?”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Alabama Senate Race Too Close To Call

There is another new wrinkle in the topsy-turvy Alabama Senate race. A new poll released over the weekend showed Democrat Doug Jones with a three-point lead over embattled Republican Roy Moore.

The Washington Post – Schar School poll found Jones with 50 percent support of 739 likely voters to Moore’s 47 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 4.5 points making the poll a statistical tie.

Two other polls that overlap the Post poll further confuse the state of the race. A CBS/You Gov poll released this morning found Moore with a six-point lead over Jones and an Emerson College poll gave Moore a three-point advantage.  

The only recent poll that shows either candidate with a lead outside the margin of error is the CBS poll, which found Moore with a 49-43 advantage over Jones. That poll sampled 766 likely voters and had a margin of error of 4.8 percent.

The polling showed that voters are divided over the allegations against Moore. The Post poll showed that 35 percent believe that Moore harassed teenage girls while 37 percent are unsure or have no opinion. Only 28 percent doubt the accusations. CBS reported that 92 percent of Republicans don’t believe the accusations against Moore.

Only one poll, Emerson, asked voters about independent candidate Lee Busby. Busby entered the race in mid-November as a conservative alternative to Moore. The retired Marine polled at five percent compared to 49 and 46 percent for Moore and Jones respectively.

Emerson is also the only poll of the three that has regularly sampled the race. The record of polls on Real Clear Politics shows that previous Emerson polls gave Moore 55 percent in early November and 53 percent just after Thanksgiving. This shows a slight downward trend for Moore and more women came forward and Jones built an advantage in fundraising and advertising. Moore’s lead in the Emerson polling has declined from 10 points in early November to his current three-point advantage.

The small number of undecided voters may eventually break for Doug Jones since Moore is much more well known in the state. An axiom of polling developed by analyst Dick Morris is that undecided voters favor the insurgent candidate. If the incumbent or better-known candidate has not sealed the deal and is polling below 50 percent as the election approaches, it often means that he will lose the election.

Polling is difficult in state and local races and the different results almost certainly reflect different assumptions about what the electorate will look like as well as the changing nature of the race. The bottom line for the current crop of polls is that the race is too close to call. Moore seems to hold a slight lead despite Jones’ advantage in the Washington Post poll, but, with donations pouring in from around the country, Jones is within striking distance.

With the race inside the margin of error in most polls, the election could go either way. The final result will depend on which candidate can best urge their voters to turn out and get to the polls. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Jones Has Heavy Advantage Over Moore in Ads and Fundraising

Roy Moore is still in a close race with Democrat Doug Jones, but you might not know it from watching Alabama television. The Democratic candidate is spending about seven times more than the scandal-plagued Republican. Jones has aired about 10,000 television ads compared to about 1,000 for Moore.

“I saw probably 40 to 50 Doug Jones ads, and I saw one Roy Moore ad,” Daniel Deriso, an aide to the Democratic mayor-elect of Birmingham, said of the Thanksgiving break.

Politico reports that Jones held a financial advantage even before the accusations of sexual misconduct against Moore. Since the reports of Moore’s alleged misbehavior in the late 1970s became public, online donations to the Jones campaign have rolled in from around the country. At the same time, the Moore campaign took a hit as the Republican National Committee cut off support.

AL.com gave Moore a slight fundraising advantage in late October. At that point, Moore had raised $2.5 million through the end of September and had $543,000 on hand after the difficult primary fight. Jones had raised $1.6 million and had a balance of $1 million. Three weeks later, after Moore’s accusers came forward, the Washington Examiner reported that Jones was raising $250,000 per day.

The fundraising advantage gives Jones the upper hand in the race, which is rare for Democrats in deep red Alabama. Even amid the ongoing scandal and with scant support from national Republicans, polling shows a tight race with Moore and Jones in a dead heat. Jones’ ability to drown out Moore’s message in a blitz of advertising may be the deciding factor in the race.

Politico notes that Jones’ ads are aimed at Republicans who are not happy with Moore. The ads feature Republican critics of Moore, criticisms of the healthcare system and emphasize Jones’ background as a federal prosecutor, a nonpartisan position that helps to distance him from the national Democratic Party. The ads feature quotes from Ivanka Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Al.) saying that they believe Moore’s accusers.

The Jones campaign is flush enough with ad money that it is moving beyond attacking Moore’s sexual history to education policy. In a new ad, Jones says that Moore “compares preschool and early childhood education to Nazi indoctrination” while Jones promises to work “across party lines for preschool and smaller class sizes.”

Appearing as nonthreatening and bipartisan is vital for Jones. Fifty-two percent of Alabamans identify as Republicans and half say they are conservative. There is no path to victory in a statewide election for a Democrat who cannot win Republican votes.

It is Jones’ liberal views that are his Achilles heel in conservative Alabama. His opposition to restrictions on abortion has made him vulnerable to attacks in a state where 57 percent of voters identify as pro-life. Still, some Alabamans find the accusations against Moore too much to overlook.

“I’d like to see someone in there who’d support Trump, but I believe the women,” Suzanne Turner of Huntsville told the Washington Post. “I put a Doug Jones sign in my yard. I felt a little sick doing that. But I had to.”

The race is reminiscent of last summer’s special election in Georgia in which Democrats pinned their hopes and treasure on Jon Ossof. Ossof outspent Republican Karen Handel by six to one in the race for former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price’s congressional seat, but still lost a close race.

As the campaign enters the final stretch, it will be Jones whose message inundates the airwaves and sets the tone. Jones will be able to paint himself as a nonthreatening moderate while hammering away with the argument that Moore is an extremist and a sexual predator. In Alabama, it may still not be enough. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Marine Colonel Enters Alabama Senate Race As Write-In Candidate

A new candidate has emerged the embattled Alabama Senate race. Lee Busby, a retired Marine colonel, has announced that he will challenge Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones as an independent candidate in the special election to fill the seat of Jeff Sessions.

Per the Daily Beast, Busby, who served as a vice chief of staff to then-Gen. John Kelly, the current White House chief of staff, has worked as a defense consultant and investment banker since his retirement after 31 years as a Marine. In his spare time, Busby sculpts busts of fallen soldiers.

“Alabama is not happy with the two choices we have down here. They are not appealing,” Busby said.

Roy Moore, the embattled Republican candidate for the Alabama Senate seat, has been accused of inappropriate sexual contact with teenage girls when Moore was in his 30s. Additionally, Moore has embraced a number of conspiracy theories and failed to complete two terms as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Polls showed a close race even before the allegations against Moore became public.

Busby’s entrance into the race as a write-in candidate is bad news for Roy Moore, who seemed to be consolidating a lead in recent days. Many prominent Republicans refused to support Moore on the basis of the credible accusations against him, but others, including President Trump, supported him on the grounds that the Senate seat was too important to lose to Democrats. Busby provides a conservative alternative for Alabamans who cannot vote for a man credibly accused of sexual assaulting teenage girls, but who also reject the liberal positions of the Democrats.

With the Alabama special election set for Dec. 12, Busby has only two weeks to mount a campaign. The late entry into the race means that Busby stands almost no chance of winning, but he could act as a spoiler in the tight race.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Was Never A Good Candidate

One year into the Trump revolution it now appears almost certain that a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama is going to end up in the hands of the Democrats. The slim Republican majority will likely be eroded to a single seat, which will effectively put the brakes on the Republican agenda. It’s worth looking back at how the Republican Party got here.

The Alabama Senate race began simply enough. Incumbent Jeff Sessions left to become the attorney general with the full expectation that the governor of Alabama would appoint a Republican to take his place and the state’s conservative voters would rubberstamp the governor’s pick.

Enter Luther Strange. Strange was the state attorney general and was responsible for the investigation of Gov. Robert Bentley. Bentley picked Strange to be the new senator in a move that many Alabamans thought smacked of an insider quid pro quo after impeachment proceedings against the governor were delayed for six months.

Although he was endorsed by President Trump and the majority of the Washington Republicans, the scent of corruption was too great for Strange to overcome. Strange and Moore were the top two finishers in the Republican primary in August. Moore, backed by Steve Bannon and the populist wing of the GOP, went on to defeat Strange in the runoff to become the Republican nominee.

Things went bad for Moore almost immediately. A Fox News poll in October, weeks before the sex scandal broke, showed that Moore was tied with Democrat Doug Jones at 42 percent. The poll was a shock to Alabama Republicans.

In a moment that may turn out to be prophetic, President Trump had argued at a September rally for Luther Strange that “ Roy has a very good chance of not winning in the general election.”

Moore had a long history in Alabama. Twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court, he had finished neither term. He was removed from the court in 2003 for refusing to comply with a federal court’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state building. In 2015, he was removed again for refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision mandating same-sex marriage. Between his partial terms on the court, Moore mounted two unsuccessful campaigns for governor in 2006 and 2010.

Even before Moore partnered with Steve Bannon to take on Strange, there were warning signs about Moore. The most obvious red flags were Moore’s connections to fringe conspiracy beliefs. Moore debuted as a columnist for World Net Daily, a prominent fake news site, in 2006. One of the columns that Moore authored argued for a religious test for office that would prohibit Muslims from serving in Congress. Moore was also a prominent birther, claiming that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen as recently as December 2016. In a September 2017 interview with Vox, Moore claimed, “There are communities under Sharia law right now in our country.”

Even before the sexual assault allegations, there were questions about Moore’s character. In 2002, Moore founded the nonprofit legal organization, the Foundation for Moral Law. Moore said in public that he did not take a “regular salary” from the group, but the Washington Post reported that the charity paid Moore a salary of $180,000 per year, which amounted to more than $1 million and was far more than the foundation disclosed on IRS filings.

In 2002, the Montgomery Advertiser hinted that there was an unknown, dark side to Roy Moore. “Some of those who worked with Moore roll their eyes when asked about him but keep their mouths shut,” Todd Kleffman wrote for the Advertiser, “There are plenty of stories to tell, the longtime secretaries, parole officials and lawyers said, but not on the record and not now, while Moore sits atop the state court system and controls its purse strings.”

Jimmy Hedgspeth, the Etowah County DA, said at the time, “If Roy wasn't the chief justice, I'd tell you anything you want to know. I think we have to have respect for the office, even if we don't like the people who hold it.”

Teresa Jones, who worked with Moore at the District Attorney’s office in Gadsden, said in a tweet, “It was common knowledge about Roy's propensity for teenage girls. I'm appalled that these women are being skewered for the truth.” Other locals in Gadsden say that Moore was banned from the mall for harassing teenage girls.

Looking back, there were plenty of warning signs about Roy Moore. If the Washington Post could hear the whispers about Moore and seek out witnesses to his behavior, why couldn’t opposition researchers from other Republican campaigns? Why didn’t Alabama’s party establishment intervene to spare the state the disgrace that it is currently experiencing?

The answer is that the Republican Party is caught up in irrational populist anger. The party’s voters rejected Luther Strange because he was too corrupt and too connected to the party establishment. They rejected Mo Brooks because he was insufficiently subservient to Donald Trump.

In the end, Alabama Republicans violated the basic rule of William F. Buckley to nominate the most conservative candidate who can win. In Roy Moore, Alabama Republicans picked a candidate who was known to have embraced conspiracy theories, who was vulnerable to questions about his business dealings, who had two failed campaigns for statewide office and who, after winning elections, had failed to fulfill his term of office twice. Even without allegations of sexual misconduct, Moore should have been toxic as a candidate.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Major Conservative Donor Dumps Steve Bannon... For Mitch McConnell

Politics is a finicky business. One week you’re the kingmaker, sitting atop the GOP and the next you’re cast aside for your arch-enemy, the establishment RINO in charge of the Senate. This is the month that Steve Bannon is having.

After Roy Moore’s victory over incumbent Senator Luther Strange in Alabama, the former White House strategist and alt-right media mogul was on top of the world. He had just bumped off the establishment pick for the seat of now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and there was talk that Bannon was now the de facto head of the Republican Party. The insurgent strategist announced plans to challenge every sitting Republican senator who came up for re-election in 2018. Luther Strange was to be only his first victim.

Even before the story of Roy Moore’s affinity for underage girls broke, things were starting to crumble for Bannon. In early November, Robert Mercer, a hedge fund billionaire and major conservative donor, announced that he was selling his stake in Breitbart, Bannon’s alt-right website. In his announcement, Mercer cited differences with Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt-right firebrand elevated to stardom on Breitbart who was revealed to have links to white nationalists and a soft spot for pedophilia.

The hits seem to just keep on coming for Bannon.

Now Sheldon Adelson, another billionaire conservative donor, has announced that he is breaking ties with Steve Bannon. To add insult to injury, Adelson is making clear that he is not just breaking off relations with Bannon, he is declaring war on the populist wing of the GOP.

“The Adelsons will not be supporting Steve Bannon’s efforts,” Andy Abboud, an Adelson spokesman, told Politico. “They are supporting Mitch McConnell 100 percent. For anyone to infer anything otherwise is wrong.”

Adelson’s break with Bannon comes a day after he addressed the Zionists of America and called on the Jewish group to “work as partners” against the Republican establishment per Haaretz. Adelson, who is Jewish, was originally slated to introduce Bannon at the gala event.

The break between Adelson and Bannon seems to have little to do with Zionism or Bannon’s alleged but unproven anti-Semitism and everything to do with Bannon’s attempted hostile takeover of the Republican Party. With little to show from the Republican control of Washington and retirements mounting from experienced congressional Republicans, last week’s Democrat sweep of the off-year elections and the sudden implosion of Roy Moore’s campaign were apparently the last straw.

Bannon’s problems with Moore and Yiannopoulos were both due to insufficient vetting. Internet sleuths found embarrassing videos of Yiannopoulos while the Washington Post investigated longstanding rumors about Moore. With Bannon openly supporting Kelli Ward in Arizona, a Republican senatorial candidate who once hosted a town hall meeting with chemtrails as the subject, Adelson must have been wondering what other surprises he could expect from Bannon’s handpicked candidates.

Mitch McConnell may not be the most charismatic or conservative of Republicans, but he is a survivor who helped to rebuild the party after the Democrat wave election in 2008. Sheldon Adelson has apparently decided that the Bannon revolution has run its course and decided to choose experience over populist anger.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Isn’t Going Anywhere - Neither are His Supporters

As prominent Republicans call for Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore to step down amid allegations that he had inappropriate sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl in 1979 when Moore was 32, the flamboyant Republican is refusing to drop out of the race. In a series of tweets Thursday night, Moore vowed to “NEVER GIVE UP the fight!”

“The Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I’ve EVER faced!” Moore said in the first of four tweets. “We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message.”

“The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal –– even inflict physical harm –– if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me,” Moore said in the second tweet in the series.

“I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values!” the third tweet said. “Our nation is at a crossroads right now — both spiritually and politically.”

“Our children and grandchildren’s futures are on the line. So rest assured — I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!” Moore concluded.

The final tweet also contained a statement in which Moore said that the accusations were a “fabrication” and a “completely false and desperate political attack.”

The accusations against Moore are serious and credible enough to end the Senate hopes of a candidate in any era but this one. Republican leaders, including President Trump, have urged Moore to withdraw from the race, but it is Donald Trump’s example that will inspire Moore and his supporters to fight on. After all, it was only last year that Republicans decided that a history of sexual assault was not disqualifying for their presidential nominee.

The Moore campaign can make a credible case that the accusations against Moore are less damning than those against Donald Trump. In Trump’s case, the candidate was caught on tape in 2005 when he was 59. There was no denying the candidate’s own words. In Moore’s case, it is his word against that of his accusers about events almost 40 years ago. Moore says that the accusations are not true and many of his supporters will take him at his word.

There is also a difference in the amount of evidence. At least 16 women came forward against Donald Trump and his supporters considered them all liars in spite of Trump’s admissions on the “Access Hollywood” tape and boasts of sexual conquests in his books. In Moore’s case, the candidate has been happily married for 33 years and does not have a reputation as a ladies man. Even if Moore’s supporters accept the accusations as true, Moore’s track record for the past three decades gives them room to write off the incidents as youthful indiscretions that are not representative of his current character.

Finally, the argument could by made that voters looked the other way with Donald Trump because the possibility that Hillary Clinton would become president was simply to horrible to accept. A similar argument can be made that preserving the Republican majority in the Senate so vital that it is necessary to overlook Moore’s actions of four decades ago.

Republicans have been unable to advance their agenda already and a loss of the Alabama seat would cut the GOP majority to a single vote. This would effectively end any chance of enacting conservative reforms. It would also make it easier for Democrats to win control of the Senate outright next year.

For all these reasons, Roy Moore will not leave the race and the vast majority of Republicans will stand by him. After elevating an admitted philanderer and “p-ssy grabber” to the head of the party of family values and the country as a whole, it will be easy to stand by someone like Moore. After compromising your principles once, it is very easy to do it again.

For a Republican Party that now seems to put politics over character and values, the descent has been swift. A year ago the party found a way to excuse Donald Trump’s behavior as “locker room talk” and private matters between consenting adults. Now many Republicans are well on the way to rationalizing child molestation.

Originally published on The Resurgent 

Poll Shows Alabama Senate Race Tied

A surprising new poll shows that Republican Roy Moore is tied with Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race. Moore handily defeated incumbent Senator Luther Strange in the Republican primary last month.

In the new poll by Fox News, both Moore and Jones had the support of 42 percent of registered voters. The poll showed that only 53 percent of respondents were extremely or very interested in the race. Of those voters, Jones had a slight led of 46-45 percent.

Previous polling had shown Moore with a lead over Jones. Two polls taken at the end of September showed Moore with a lead of eight and five points respectively. Those polls sampled likely voters, which are historically more accurate than polls of registered voters.

The new poll shows deep divisions in the Republican Party. Forty-two percent of Moore’s supporters have reservations about the GOP candidate, who has a history of controversial behavior and comments. Only 28 percent of Jones voters have reservations.

Moore’s history, including two unfinished terms on the state Supreme Court, explains why a third a Jones voters support the Democrat candidate because they believe that Moore is too extreme. Twenty-one percent say that they are voting against Moore as opposed to voting for Jones.

While campaigning for Luther Strange, President Trump worried that Moore might have problems in the general election. Two months before Election Day, that seems to be a real danger. Thirty-nine percent say that Moore is “out of step” with Alabama compared to 29 percent who say that Jones is too liberal.

In deep red Alabama, the electorate still favors the Republican, but the new poll should be alarming to GOP strategists. Expect both parties to pour money into the state to compete for the 11 percent of voters who are still undecided.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Will Be Another GOP Maverick - If He Can Win

Judge Roy Moore cruised to victory in the Alabama Republican primary runoff yesterday. Moore’s victory came despite heavy support by President Trump and Republican leaders in Washington for incumbent Luther Strange. In fact, some of the Washington endorsements for Strange probably did more to help Roy Moore than their intended recipient.

President Trump’s endorsement of Luther Strange had a limited effect. Polling in late August showed Roy Moore with 51 percent and 32 percent for Strange with 17 percent undecided. Moore won the actual vote 55-45 percent, which seems to indicate that a majority of undecided voters broke for Strange.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Few have been as strange as the alliance between Donald Trump and Luther Strange, who was singled out as a “swamp creature” by many conservatives. Strange was hobbled from the start by opponents who tied him to two recent corruption scandals in Alabama. Strange was among the many Alabama politicians, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who took money from a company that was later charged with bribing a state legislator in connection with an EPA cleanup. He was also tainted by his appointment to the Senate by Gov. Robert Bentley at the same time that Strange, who was then Alabama’s attorney general, was investigating the governor for corruption in a scandal that eventually led to his impeachment.

In spite of appeals by the president and prominent Republicans, most conservative groups rallied behind Moore, who ran primarily against Mitch McConnell, who had also endorsed Strange. The August poll by JMC Analytics found that 45 percent said that McConnell’s endorsement made them less likely to vote for Strange. Forty-six percent said it made no difference.

The antipathy to the Republican leadership comes at an inopportune time. The Republicans have just suffered an embarrassing defeat on Obamacare thanks to a small number of Republican senators who deserted the party to vote against the Republican reform bill. Roy Moore has strong conservative and Christian credentials, but he will not be a senator who can be counted on to stand with the party on votes for bills like Graham-Cassidy.

Moore has a reputation as a maverick and a rebel. Moore was twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court and was twice removed. In 2003, a panel ruled that Moore had violated the state ethics code and removed him from the bench after he ignored a federal court order instructing him to remove a Ten Commandments monument. In 2015, Moore was suspended again for ordering state judges to ignore the Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage the law of the land. While Moore has remained true to his principles, his actions have not been effective at advancing his agenda.

President Trump, at this weekend rally for Luther Strange, made two key arguments for Strange. The first was that Strange was a loyal legislator who had been a reliable vote for the Trump agenda. Moore overcame this objection by running as a supporter of the Trump agenda, even if he might be less of a sure vote than Luther Strange. “Don’t let anybody in the press think that because he [Trump] supported my opponent that I do not support him,” Moore said in the New York Times after his victory.

Trump’s second point was that Moore might not be electable in the general election. He may have a point there. The eccentric former judge has a history of controversial remarks and even pulled out a pistol at a campaign rally the day before the election. The possibility of Moore pulling “a Todd Akin” and handing to the election to the Democrats with an outlandish comment is a real possibility.

In the crimson state of Alabama, as the Republican candidate, the race is Moore’s to lose. Whether Moore wins or loses, the Republican problems in the Senate will not be resolved and it will still be difficult to advance the Republican agenda. The real loser is the traditional Republican establishment whose endorsements were rejected by voters even as the candidates fought over who was President Trump’s best ally.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Stands By 'Big Luther'

At a rally in Huntsville, Ala. last night, President Trump continued to strongly endorse incumbent Republican Senator Luther Strange. Strange, who is linked to a corruption scandal in Alabama, will face challenger Roy Moore in the Republican primary runoff next Tuesday.  

The president kicked off his speech with support for Senator Strange, who he said “will fight for your interests, defend your values and always put America first.” In a rambling speech, Trump said that he liked “Big Luther,” nicknamed for his height, for his loyalty, including a no-strings-attached commitment to vote for the Obamacare reform bill that Trump called the “coolest thing that has happened to me in six months.”

“The last thing I want to is be involved in a primary,” Trump said, adding that he wanted to repay Strange’s loyalty by helping him when he was down in the polls.

“I might have made a mistake,” Trump said of his endorsement. “If Luther doesn’t win, they’re not going to say we picked up 25 points in a very short period of time. They’re going to say, ‘Donald Trump, the president of the United States, was unable to pull his candidate across the [finish] line.’”

Trump said that Strange and challenger Roy Moore were “both good men.” The president said that if Moore won the primary, he would be “campaigning like hell for him,” but expressed doubts that Moore could win the general election.

Politico reports that polling in the race shows Moore with a slight lead in the race. Moore was the top finisher in the first round of polling in August, finishing six points ahead of Strange. The winner of the Republican primary will face Democrat Doug Jones in a general election on December 12.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Gun Owners of America endorses candidates in Alabama special senate election

The Gun Owners of America (GOA) has endorsed two candidates for senator in the race to fill the seat of Jeff Sessions, who was appointed by Donald Trump to become  attorney general. Interestingly, neither of the two recommended candidates is the sitting Republican senator who was appointed to Sessions’ seat in the interim by a former governor.

In a press release, the GOA said that it supports Rep. Mo Brooks and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Judge Roy Moore to fill Sessions’ seat in the Senate. Tim Macy, chairman of the GOA, praised Brooks and Moore for their “strong, uncompromising records on gun rights.”

“Mo Brooks has an ‘A’ rating from GOA as U.S. Representative, and Judge Moore has long been an articulate, and uncompromising, champion for gun rights,” Macy said in the release. “Either of these candidates would fight for gun rights, instead of the D.C. establishment.”

The current frontrunner in the field of 11 Republicans and eight Democrats is the incumbent Senator Luther Strange. Strange was appointed to fill Sessions’ seat by the disgraced Robert Bentley, who was forced to resign as governor after his affair with Rebekah Mason and the subsequent cover up became a national scandal. Strange previously served as Alabama’s attorney general and had responsibility for investigating Gov. Bentley’s crimes. The circumstances of Strange’s appointment as he investigated the governor left a sour taste in the mouths of many Alabamans, especially after accusations that Strange intentionally delayed the impeachment proceedings against Bentley for six months.

Some political opponents are also attempting to tie Strange to the case of Oliver Robinson, a state legislator accused of taking $360,000 in bribes. The Project on Government Oversight reported that Strange and many other Alabama politicians, including Jeff Sessions, took money from Drummond Coal and Balch & Bingham, a Birmingham law firm. Drummond and Balch are accused of paying bribes to Robinson in connection with an EPA Superfund site that would have cost the coal company tens of millions of dollars in cleanup funds.

The Alabama Ethics Commission was also scheduled to hold a hearing on alleged campaign finance violations by Strange on August 2. The Resurgent reported that the hearing was postponed until August 16, the day after the Republican primary for the special election.

The reason that GOA is not supporting Strange is a simple one. “Strange has pledged his loyalty to Senate leaders,” Macy said. “Unfortunately, he has quickly become a ‘Swamp Creature.’”

The Washington Examiner reported that the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC affiliated with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), spent millions of dollars to buy attack ads against both Brooks and Moore. The support from McConnell will further cement the perception that Strange is part of the Republican establishment.

Mo Brooks is currently a congressman from Alabama’s fifth district, which incorporates the northern part of the state. Brooks has served in the House of Representatives since 2011. He endorsed Ted Cruz for president in 2016 and was critical of Donald Trump throughout the campaign, a fact which Strange has used to attack him. In 2011, the American Conservative Union called Brooks the most conservative member of the Alabama House delegation. He maintains an 89 percent lifetime rating from the ACU.

Roy Moore is best known outside Alabama for his battle with the federal judiciary over the Ten Commandments. As chief justice, Moore kept a promise to install a Ten Commandments monument in the state Supreme Court building. He was removed from office by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary in 2003 for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove the monument. He was reelected as chief justice in 2012, but was forced to resign for refusing to uphold the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage.

Both Brooks and Moore have a large following in Alabama, while Strange has the advantages of incumbency and support of the party leadership. Recent polling shows Strange and Moore in a statistical heat with 35 and 33 percent respectively. Brooks trails with 16 percent.

The primary vote for the special election will be held on August 15. If no Republican earns more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers will face each other in a runoff on September 26. The special election will be held on December 12.

Originally published on The Resurgent