Trump travels to Alabama to campaign for 'Big' Luther Strange ahead of Senate runoff

ByPAOLA CHAVEZ ABCNews logo
Friday, September 22, 2017

President Donald Trump will visit Alabama Friday to campaign ahead of the Senate runoff for the Republican primary to fill the seat left vacant by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Trump, who won the state by a nearly 28 percent margin in the 2016 presidential election, has endorsed Luther Strange, the incumbent temporarily appointed to fill the seat.

"Alabama is sooo lucky to have a candidate like 'Big' Luther Strange," Trump tweeted about his favored candidate Wednesday.

Vice President Mike Pence is also expected to campaign for Strange on Monday, just a day before the GOP primary that is slated for Sept.26.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has spent over 3.5 million to boost Strange.

Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, however, are backing Judge Roy Moore, who was twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court and removed for ignoring court orders.

The winner of the primary will move on to the special election on Dec. 12 and face the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, who is recognized as the lead prosecutor in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing case that killed four African-American girls.

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