Firebrand jurist Roy Moore on Tuesday won the Alabama Republican primary runoff for US Senate, defeating an appointed incumbent backed by both US President Donald Trump and deep-pocketed allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In an upset certain to rock the US Republican establishment, Moore clinched a nine-point victory over Senator Luther Strange to take the Republican nomination for the seat previously held by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Moore is to face Democrat Doug Jones in a Dec. 12 special election.
Photo: AFP
It was a political resurrection for the 70-year-old former Alabama chief justice who was twice removed from those duties after taking stands for public display of the Ten Commandments and against gay marriage.
Moore, in his victory speech, returned to themes of God and government, saying that he had “never prayed to win this campaign,” but only that’s “God’s will be done.”
“We have to return the knowledge of God and the constitution of the United States to the United States Congress,” Moore told a cheering crowd in his victory party in Montgomery.
Moore predicted the race could be a bellwether for next year’s midterms, saying the victory tells the establishment in “Washington, DC, that their wall has been cracked and will now fall.”
The race has pitted Trump against his former strategist Steve Bannon, who had argued Moore was a better fit for the “populist” movement.
Introducing Moore, Bannon told a frenzied crowd that the victory was a repudiation of the “fat cats” of Washington who pumped millions into the Alabama race to boost Strange.
Bannon declared Moore’s win a victory for Trump, despite the president’s support for Strange.
Moore said he supports the president and his agenda.
After the race, Trump tweeted his congratulations to Moore, saying that “Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race.”
Trump and Moore spoke by telephone later on Tuesday night.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a super political action committee with ties to McConnell, had spent an estimated US$9 million trying to secure the nomination for Strange.
Group president and CEO Steven Law on Tuesday said that Moore won the nomination “fair and square” and the group will now back him, adding that Moore “has our support, as it is vital that we keep this seat in Republican hands.”
In a statement, McConnell congratulated Moore and said Senate Republicans are committed to keeping the seat in the party’s hands.
Even though Alabama has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in two decades, Democrats are hopeful they have an opening in the December election against Moore.
Jones is a former US attorney best known for prosecuting the Klansmen who killed four girls in a 1963 church bombing.
He on Tuesday said that he wanted to focus the race on the “kitchen table issues” that matter to all Alabamians, “healthcare, education for our kids, jobs and a living wage.”
Strange supporters were at least somewhat divided on how they will approach the general election in December.
“It will be closer than if Luther had won” the nomination, said Perry Hooper, a former state lawmaker who predicted some Republicans will stay home in December or even vote for Jones.
However, Hooper, who served as Trump’s Alabama campaign chief, said he is all in for Moore.
“Ultimately, this is about helping the president,” Hooper said. “This is a Republican state, and Roy will help the president.”
Moore was twice elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and twice removed from those duties.
In 2003, he was removed from office for disobeying a federal judge’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse lobby.
Last year, he was permanently suspended after a disciplinary panel ruled he had urged probate judges to defy federal court decisions on gay marriage and deny wedding licenses to same-sex couples.
He denied that accusation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing