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Tommy Tuberville defeats Jeff Sessions in Alabama Republican Senate runoff

MONTGOMERY – Alabama Republicans Tuesday night decided to send former Auburn head football coach Tommy Tuberville to face U.S. Sen Doug Jones in November.

Tuberville, a first-time political candidate who had the backing of President Donald Trump, defeated former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was seeking to return to the seat he held for 20 years.

Alabama primary runoff election: See the results

Tuberville’s victory showed Trump’s continued grip on Alabama’s GOP electorate even as his standing has taken a hit nationwide amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Sessions was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump for president in 2016, and became an important surrogate for him during the campaign. Trump nominated Sessions to be U.S. attorney general, where he served from February 2017 to November 2018.

But the relationship curdled after Sessions recused himself from an investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election in 2017. During his Senate confirmation hearing for U.S. attorney general, Sessions failed to disclose contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Sessions has repeatedly said he was following ethical and legal guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice at the time. But the move enraged Trump, who attacked Sessions before and after he forced him out as U.S. attorney general in November 2018.“Jeff, you had your chance & you blew it,” Trump wrote in a tweet on May 23. “Recused yourself ON DAY ONE (you never told me of a problem), and ran for the hills. You had no courage, & ruined many lived.”

Trump tweeted after the race was called that Tuberville "WON big against" Sessions and will "be a GREAT Senator for the incredible people of Alabama" while calling Jones "a terrible Senator who is just a Super Liberal puppet for Schumer & Pelosi."

Tuberville, enjoying Trump’s support, ran a very low-profile campaign between March and July. The former head coach rarely announced campaign appearances in advance and mostly shunned press conferences, echoing a similar approach used by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey during her successful 2018 election campaign.

More: Tommy Tuberville leads Jeff Sessions in spring fundraising

Outside of professing loyalty to Trump, Tuberville’s campaign platform was hazy. He told the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the USA TODAY Network, in March that he supported Trump’s efforts to build a border wall with Mexico, and wanted to reduce the national debt through cuts to social programs (though he said he opposed cutting Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid). The former coach also expressed a desire to target Common Core-derived educational standards.

Catherine Crawford, a retired teacher from Montgomery, voted for Tuberville, in part because of Trump's criticism of Sessions.

"I hated that, because I think Jeff Sessions is a pretty good fellow," she said. "If he hadn't done that one thing, people would have voted for him."

Denied Trump’s endorsement, Sessions turned to the issues he emphasized in his last years in the U.S. Senate, calling for immigration restrictions and expressing skepticism about free trade agreements. He also attacked Tuberville over two issues. While coaching Auburn in 1999, Tuberville suspended a wideout initially arrested on a statutory rape charge for a single game.

Tuberville did so after the player, Clifton Robinson, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Sessions accused Tuberville of putting “winning football games ahead of teaching life lessons to young men on your football team,” though Tuberville suspended Robinson for about five months prior to the guilty plea.

More: Tuberville campaign responds to report on former coach's handling of charges against player

Sessions also attacked Tuberville for his role in a hedge fund in which his partner went to prison on fraud charges. Tuberville, who was not charged, reached a private settlement with investors in 2013. The New York Times reported earlier this month that Tuberville may have lost upwards of $2 million, and Tuberville’s campaign has said he was a victim of the fraud.

Laura Kellum, who voted for Jeff Sessions Tuesday, said Sessions was "a fine senator," adding that "no self-respecting Alabama fan will vote for Tommy Tuberville."

Jane McDaniel, who accompanied Kellum to the polls, also voted for Sessions, citing his experience.

"What's a football coach know about politics?" she asked.

Tuberville goes into the fall campaign as the favorite in a state expected to give Trump a big margin of victory in November, and where 65% of voters in 2018 voted straight ticket. Sixty percent of those ballots went to Republicans.

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But Jones won’t go away quietly. The U.S. senator had a war chest of $8.2 million as of March 31 (Tuberville had $448,000 in the bank on June 24) and has taken a public role in addressing the COVID-19 outbreak in Alabama, which has spiked in June and July. Jones, who has been campaigning on a message of One Alabama, plans to make health care a central issue in the fall.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brian Lyman at 334-240-0185 or blyman@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama runoff: Tommy Tuberville defeats Jeff Sessions