Jeff Sessions Pushed to Runoff in Senate Comeback Bid

(Bloomberg) -- Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump's first attorney general, will face a Republican Party runoff in his bid to reclaim the Alabama Senate seat that the GOP lost to Democrat Doug Jones in 2017, according to an AP projection.

Sessions, 73, and Tommy Tuberville, a 65-year-old former Auburn football coach, each racked up about a third of the votes in the primary late Tuesday night, short of the majority needed to preclude a runoff, scheduled for March 31.

Tuberville has used Trump's firing of Sessions in ads and has supported Trump's plans to “investigate the investigators,” while Sessions has ripped Tuberville on immigration and for previous criticisms of Trump.

The president himself has yet to weigh in on the race in a state where he remains very popular. Sessions has repeatedly touted his early support for Trump in television ads, but he could still be wounded by his former boss's attacks on him over his decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The president has blamed the action by Sessions for the years-long inquiry that he has labeled a “witch hunt.”

Sessions is seeking to return to a chamber where he spent two decades with overwhelming support from voters in the state. In 2014, he ran unopposed.

Sessions was a key early supporter of Trump, who adopted much of Sessions' hardline immigration agenda and hired then-Sessions aide Stephen Miller to craft policy.

After the falling out with the president cost him his cabinet job in 2018, Sessions took a break from public life for a year as several other Republicans joined a crowded field, including Roy Moore, who was defeated by Jones in an upset win after sexual misconduct allegations. Moore denied the allegations.

Sessions surprised some when he announced in November he would run for his old seat.

Moore was trailing badly on Tuesday night, in fourth place, with single digits. Representative Bradley Byrne came in third with about a quarter of the vote. Without Moore on the ballot, Jones will have a tough fight to keep a Senate seat in one of Trump's best states.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk, John Harney

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