The Hill reports that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions is expected to run for Senate again, to fill his former Alabama seat. They predict that he will announce his run on Thursday, with the deadline to file for the Senate race on Friday.
One source said that Sessions “will come out forcefully in support of [President] Trump’s agenda while denouncing Democrats’ impeachment efforts. And steps have already begun to hire campaign staff.”
Sessions held the Senate seat from 1997 until 2017, when he was tapped to serve as Trump’s first attorney general. But he quickly fell out of favor with the president after recusing himself from oversight of the Russia probe, eventually leaving the administration in November 2018, a day after the midterm elections, at Trump’s request.
Smart of him to support the president, considering Trump will most likely be president again for the next four years.
Despite his turbulent relationship with Trump, Sessions has remained popular in Alabama, a state Trump won with 62 percent of the vote in 2016.
Sessions would be joining a crowded primary field that includes Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, businessman Stanley Adair, state Rep. Arnold Mooney and Roy Moore, the 2017 GOP nominee who lost to Sen. Doug Jones (D) in the special election to fill Sessions’s former seat.
From the sounds of it, Sessions will not be backed by key Republicans. It was also reported that a White House operative said they would view his candidacy as "extremely unfavorable."
“The one thing you want in 2020 is to ensure that the Alabama race is not a national news story. If it’s a no-drama affair, the outcome isn’t in doubt. Three or four candidates that can win by double digits over Jones,” the operative added, “Sessions is the favorite in the primary. If Trump decides to embark upon a tweetstorm, it changes everything."
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