The newest member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Luther Strange of Alabama, appointed to the Senate in February to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions, also is the first of the panel’s members to face the voters. He’s in a neck-and-neck race ahead of the Aug. 15 Republican primary election and has appealed to the farm block for support.
The former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, led Strange, 31 percent to 29 percent, in a poll of likely Republican voters sponsored by a Republican-leaning blog, RRH Elections, says the Montgomery Advertiser. The margin of error in the poll was 5 points. Moore has led almost every internal campaign poll, says Alabama Media Group, putting Strange and Rep. Mo Brooks into a fight for second place, and the chance to appear in a runoff.
If no one wins 50 percent of the vote in the primary election, the two top finishers compete in a runoff election Sept. 26. The general election is Dec. 12, with the winner completing a Senate term that expires in 2018. The campaign for a full term could start almost as soon as the special election concludes. Alabama’s senators have been Republicans since 1994, so the GOP race has dominated attention.
In the past month, Strange has brought Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts to farm meetings in a demonstration of power. In early July, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt came to Alabama to talk about environmental regulations with Strange.
The largest farm group in the state, the Alabama Farmers Federation, with 357,000 members, endorsed Strange in late May, a week after the filing deadline. AFF president Jimmy Parnell said FarmPAC backed Strange, previously the state attorney general, for his opposition to the Waters of the United States regulation and his defense of the state property-tax system, including current-use classification of farm and forestland.
Seven of the 10 Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee face re-election in 2018, including the senior Democrat on the panel, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Two committee members, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, rank among the most vulnerable Democrats whose terms expire next year; both are from states carried by Trump. Strange is the only Republican on the committee to face voters, either in 2017 or 2018.
Strange is backed by the GOP establishment, as indicated by the appearances by Pruitt, Perdue and Roberts.
New York magazine calls the campaign the “Trump primary,” in which the primary strategy for winning the nomination is “swearing absolute fealty to Donald J. Trump.” The Advertiser said 62 percent of participants in the poll said they strongly support the president. Pollsters said Brooks’ support weakened after advertisements from Strange and a political action committee aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that questioned Brooks’ support of President Trump.
“Health care has been the most widely discussed issue on the campaign trail, followed by immigration reform and support (or lack of support) for President Donald Trump’s coveted U.S.-Mexico border wall,” said the Alabama Media Group.
Clouding Strange’s campaign are the optics of his appointment. He was chosen by then-Gov. Robert Bentley, who reportedly was under investigation by Strange’s office and who later resigned.