Alabama GOP: Sessions not guaranteed to win back his old seat

[DonViejo]

The deposed attorney general would be the front-runner, and he remains popular in the state, but Trump remains a big X factor.

By DANIEL STRAUSS and JAMES ARKIN 11/25/2018 06:47 AM EST

Republicans are certain they can win back the Alabama Senate seat they lost in spectacular fashion last year. They just aren’t sure whether Jeff Sessions is the one to do it.

Sessions’ name surfaced as a potential candidate immediately after he was dumped as attorney general this month. But he could be dogged by his strained relationship with President Donald Trump, who remains wildly popular in Alabama and savaged Sessions throughout his tenure at the Justice Department.

Though Sessions would be the clear front-runner if he runs, his frayed ties with Trump could create an opening for other Republicans to make a play for the seat — and cause a messy primary similar to the one that cost the party the seat last year, several Alabama Republicans tracking the situation said.

POLITICO interviewed more than a dozen GOP operatives and potential candidates in the state about the prospect of a Sessions comeback bid and the forecast for the Senate race against Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.). They agreed that Sessions remains overwhelmingly popular in his home state after representing it for nearly two decades in the Senate.

But the Republicans were split on whether the 71-year-old Sessions would take the plunge, and whether he would clear the GOP field if he did. The belief, at least among some Republicans in the state, that Sessions might not be a gimme for the seat shows just how tumultuous the past three years have been for the Alabama political icon: From coming out as Trump’s earliest and most prominent campaign supporters, to being tapped as the nation’s most powerful law enforcement official, and now, potentially, to a difficult campaign for his old seat.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/25/jeff-sessions-alabama-senate-trump-1012532