The Establishment Candidate: Sen. Luther Strange
"Big Luther," as his ads sometimes call him, is the nominal incumbent because he won the appointment to fill the seat after Sessions resigned to become attorney general. That has been both a blessing and a curse.
On the positive side, it has allowed Strange to build up a conservative voting record. He voted to repeal Obamacare and to confirm Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, for instance. Incumbency also has given Strange access to deep pockets. He has raised more than $3.2 million, more than the other nine candidates combined. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), also has dumped nearly $2 million into the race in support of Strange and pounded his opponents with negative ads.
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The Tea Party Conservative: Mo Brooks
Brooks, who represents northern Alabama in the House of Representatives, is one of the most conservative members of Congress and a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus.
Brooks has the backing of grass-roots conservative groups, including Tea Party Patriots, and national conservative thought leaders such as LifeZette Editor in Chief Laura Ingraham, Fox News host Sean Hannity, and radio talk-show host Mark Levin.
Brooks gained national attention and free media throughout the state in June when a gunman opened fire while he and other Republican members of Congress were practicing for the annual congressional baseball game. He even used the incident in an ad defending the Second Amendment — a TV spot that drew criticism from some, including an aide to shooting victim House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).
A win by Brooks would show the power of the Tea Party and the willingness of Alabama Republicans to send someone to the Senate with the potential to cause headaches for Trump and McConnell by holding out for the most conservative version possible of legislation, even at the risk of killing those bills.
The Social Conservative Firebrand: Roy Moore
Moore has been a household name and controversial figure in the state since 2000, when he parlayed an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging his display of the Ten Commandments in the Etowah County courtroom into a successful run for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
It did not take long for him to invite controversy. Without the knowledge or consent of the other justices, he had a large granite monument of the Ten Commandments erected in the lobby of the Alabama judicial building in the state capital of Montgomery. His failure to comply with a federal judge's order to remove the monument following a lawsuit led to his ouster from the court.
After a failed run for governor in 2006, Moore made a political comeback in 2012 to reclaim his old position as chief justice. In doing so, he defeated an incumbent who had been appointed by the governor and a Mobile County Circuit Court judge who once had been state attorney general. And he did so in a clean primary win, with no need for a runoff.
But Moore soon found himself mired in controversy once again, this time over gay marriage. After a federal judge in Mobile struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage — and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block her decision from taking effect — Moore instructed the state's probate court judges to follow state law, not the federal judge's ruling.
The action led to Moore's indefinite suspension, which formally ended when he resigned to run for the Senate.
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