(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is due to travel to Alabama on Friday to whip up votes in a Senate race that has laid bare the rift between the Republican party\u2019s leadership and its anti-establishment wing. <\/p>\n
In a move that surprised political analysts, Trump will appear alongside the party-approved incumbent rather than the controversial insurgent. <\/p>\n
The president\u2019s decision to campaign for Senator Luther Strange ahead of Tuesday\u2019s primary runoff election came despite Trump\u2019s strained relationship with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of Strange\u2019s strongest supporters. <\/p>\n
In last month\u2019s initial round of voting, Strange finished second to former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, whose \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d credentials have been burnished by high-profile endorsements, including that of former White House strategist Steve Bannon. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that if you were to approach this without any prior knowledge … Judge Moore would be the more logical \u2018Trumpian\u2019 candidate,\u201d said Steven Taylor, a political science professor at Troy University in Alabama. <\/p>\n
The winner on Tuesday will be running in December against Democratic candidate Doug Jones in the Republican-dominated state. <\/p>\n
Neither Republican campaign responded to requests for comment. <\/p>\n
Moore, 70, is a religious conservative who twice lost his position as the state\u2019s top judge. He was ousted in 2003 after he refused a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building. <\/p>\n
After winning back the seat in 2013, he directed state judges to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, was suspended and then resigned. <\/p>\n
Moore has vowed to support Trump\u2019s agenda and has blamed McConnell for the Senate\u2019s lack of major legislative victories. <\/p>\n
A Moore campaign video released last week showed a photo of McConnell beside the words \u201cWashington insiders\u201d as Moore\u2019s wife warned he would not \u201cbend his knee.\u201d <\/p>\n
Strange, 64, was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant when Jeff Sessions became U.S. attorney general. <\/p>\n
Known as \u201cBig Luther\u201d due to his 6-foot-9-inch stature, he has been backed by nearly $9 million of advertising from a McConnell-allied political action committee. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am supporting \u2018Big\u2019 Luther Strange because he was so loyal helpful to me!\u201d Trump tweeted on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Strange served as state attorney general under former Governor Robert Bentley, who resigned in April. <\/p>\n
Moore has endured his share of controversy, including negative press this week after he mentioned \u201creds\u201d and \u201cyellows\u201d in an apparent reference to American Indians and Asians. <\/p>\n
In a recent advertisement, Strange questioned Moore\u2019s commitment to Trump\u2019s planned wall at the Mexican border. <\/p>\n
\u201cRoy Moore: wrong on President Trump, wrong on the wall, wrong for Alabama,\u201d the ad\u2019s narrator says. <\/p>\n
The two candidates are scheduled to square off at their only debate on Thursday. <\/p>\n
With turnout expected to be low for Tuesday\u2019s runoff, Troy University\u2019s Taylor said both campaigns have reason to believe they hold an edge. <\/p>\n
\u201cMoore\u2019s advantage is that he does appeal to the true-believing base,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cIn terms of which of the campaigns is going to be more adept at the ground game, I would think Strange has an advantage.\u201d <\/p>\n
Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Marcy Nicholson<\/p>\n
Article source: http:\/\/feeds.reuters.com\/~r\/Reuters\/PoliticsNews\/~3\/WJJP65rAJy0\/senate-race-in-alabama-exposes-republican-rift-idUSKCN1BW1AB<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is due to travel to Alabama on Friday to whip up votes in a Senate race that has laid bare the rift between the Republican party\u2019s leadership and its anti-establishment wing. In a move that surprised political analysts, Trump will appear alongside the party-approved incumbent rather than the controversial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-92134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}