Moore wins GOP runoff

Published 10:32 am Thursday, September 28, 2017

Even with an expected low voter turnout Tuesday, Roy Moore won convincingly over Luther Strange in the U.S. Senate Republican Primary runoff. 

Tuesday’s results showed Roy Moore winning the election with 54.89 percent to incument Sen. Luther Strange’s 45.11 percent. Only 14.39 percent of the 3,134,166 registered voters in Alabama went to the polls. Polls in all 67 counties reported a total of 247,553 votes for Moore and 203,435 votes for Strange. 

“Because of you (voters), tonight, the establishment has been defeated in Alabama!” Moore said. “We still have a ways to go before December 12th’s general election, and the road certainly doesn’t get easier, but with you, the best grassroots army of supporters around, I know we can take on anything together!”

Incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, with backing by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who both campaigned in support of Strange in Alabama, has been working in Washington since February after being appointed to the vacant Senate seat by former Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, which caused some controversy, but Strange felt that it did not negatively affect his campaign. 

“From the beginning of this campaign, my priority has been serving the people of Alabama,” Strange released in a statement. “Tomorrow I will go back to work with President Trump and do all I can to advance his agenda over the next few weeks. Melissa and I appreciate the many devoted friends and family who have supported us over the past months, the many Alabamians who have given us a warm welcome in every corner of the state, and the brigade of volunteers who left it all out on the field in this campaign. I am especially grateful for the support of President Trump and Vice President Pence, as well as the strong example set by my friends Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. I congratulate Roy Moore on the result this evening. May God be with him and may God continue to bless Alabama and the United States of America.”

Roy Moore, a West Point graduate, was a captain in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps and a Vietnam veteran. Moore was a deputy district attorney and circuit court judge in Etowah County before being elected as a Chief Justice to the Alabama Supreme Court from 2001-2003 and 2013-2017. 

The former Chief Justice was suspended from his position on the Alabama Supreme Court in 2016 relating to a Jan. 6 administrative order he issued to Alabama probate judges affirming their duty to follow the law as decided by the Alabama Supreme Court rather than by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in the case Obergefell v. Hodges that guaranteed the right to marry to same-sex couples.

“We’re seeing a time in which we’re living where judges and justices of the U.S. Supreme court have put themselves above the constitution,” Moore said on a visit to St. Clair County in August. 

Despite some of the controversial topics Moore has been known for, the general consensus is that he has a very dedicated and active voter base that show up at the polls on voting day. Apparently they did for the runoff election, garnering Moore the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat. 

The general election for the U.S. Senate seat will be held on Dec. 12, with Moore running against Democratic nominee Doug Jones.