The Senate Leadership Fund, affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will not be supporting Judge Roy Moore in his general election campaign, at least at this time.
The SLF spent about $10 million in its efforts to elect Sen. Luther Strange in the Alabama special election to fill the senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Following Moore’s nearly double-digit defeat of Strange last month, SLF president Steven Law said on election night that Moore “won this nomination fair and square and he has our support, as it is vital that we keep this seat in Republican hands,” according to CNN.
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However, AL.com reported Tuesday that SLF spokesman Chris Pack stated his organization does not plan to engage in the race.
“This is Alabama, not New York or California,” he said. “Democrats would first need to demonstrate this is an actual race before anything is considered.”
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The most recent polling has Moore ahead of his Democrat opponent Doug Jones by 8 points. Another poll taken the week of Moore’s victory had him up 6 points.
While those figures certainly make him the favorite with just over two months to go until the Dec. 12 election, it does not make him a shoe-in.
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The antipathy between McConnell and Moore is no secret, and the former apparently started it.
McConnell told CNN in July that one reason he was backing Strange, who was just appointed senator in February, was because he did not need another “conservative rebel in a GOP conference already difficult to manage.”
Shortly before the Aug. 15 primary, the SLF made a major buy for an ad that attacked both Moore and his wife regarding their work for a non-profit Roy Moore had founded. The Moore campaign characterized the ad as defamatory and threatened legal action.
Local NBC affiliate WVTM fact-checked the ad and found its claims to be false.
When Moore came out on top in the Aug. 15 primary and went into a runoff with Strange, the SLF spent an addition $3 million in ads that largely focused on attacking Moore.
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Fact-checkers determined an SLF ad aired during the runoff to be “mostly false.”
Moore said in late August that he would not support McConnell staying on as Republican majority leader, and when the judge traveled to Washington, D.C., last week, he reportedly met with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, but not with McConnell.
Bannon became one of Moore’s key backers in the home stretch of the runoff. The pro-Trump Great America Alliance PAC, which is affiliated with Bannon, ran ads and sponsored rallies in the Yellowhammer State.
“Your day of reckoning is coming,” Bannon promised the Washington establishment at a pre-election day rally for Moore in Fairhope, Alabama, last month.
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Bannon told Fox News host Sean Hannity Monday night that he plans to challenge every Republican senator up for re-election in 2018, save Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
According to RealClearPolitics, “Bannon said he is declaring ‘war’ on the Republican establishment and those that don’t back what President Trump ran on. He said there is a ‘new game in town’ and promised to ‘cut off the oxygen’ to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and stop his fundraising for establishment candidates.”
Bannon added that any candidate running for the Senate in 2018 who wants his support must oppose McConnell as the Republican leader.
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