Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and the front-running candidate for the open U.S. Senate seat in the state this year, told Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM 125 The Patriot Channel that he believes he is winning because God is on his side.
“I can’t predict the future but I will say God has been with us throughout this campaign, and I think Washington is about to learn something that is unusual to them: That they can’t buy the people of Alabama,” Moore said on Sunday evening’s program. “They can’t buy their way into the United States Senate and indeed it’s wrong for them to even try that.”
Moore was reacting to the latest polling from JMC Analytics, reported exclusively by Breitbart News earlier on Sunday, that he was in the lead over Luther Strange ahead of the Sept. 26 runoff with majority support. The poll has Moore at 51 percent, while Strange is lagging nearly 20 points behind at just 32 percent—and 17 percent of voters are undecided. Moore considerably outperformed polls on Aug. 15 in the first round of voting to finish in first place ahead of Strange, who finished at a distant second, in the primary. They both beat Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), another conservative like Moore, for the two spots in the Sept. 26 runoff.
The race for the seat vacated by now Attorney General Jeff Sessions is particularly contentious given the questionable circumstances under which Strange was appointed into the seat. Strange was appointed by then Gov. Robert Bentley, while he was investigating Bentley for a corruption scandal as the state’s Attorney General. Bentley resigned as a result of that very scandal shortly after promoting Strange by appointing him into the seat.
Also at play are the millions upon millions of dollars that allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the vehemently anti-President Donald Trump GOP operative Karl Rove have poured into Alabama with false attack ads against Brooks and Moore. Rove’s right hand man Steven Law—who worked with Rove at the American Crossroads super PAC—is running the Senate Leadership Fund group backed by McConnell allies.
President Trump has condemned Rove previously, during the campaign telling Breitbart News in April 2016 that he believed Rove is a “dishonorable guy” who should not be allowed to write for the Wall Street Journal. That makes it particularly interesting that Trump would have endorsed Strange during the first round of voting, an endorsement that did not help Strange much, as he finished in deep second place–far behind Moore. On the morning after the primary’s first round, Trump congratulated both Moore and Strange on Twitter—and it remains to be seen if he will do anything else to help Strange between now and Sept. 26 or whether he will stay out of the battle given the fact that Moore is far ahead of Strange in the polls.
More than $10 million, closer to nearly $15 million, was spent on Strange’s behalf for him to finish so poorly in the race. The JMC Analytics poll Breitbart News broke exclusively on Sunday demonstrated that the attack ads either backfired on Strange or simply did not help him enough to win. Moore agrees that the people of Alabama see through it, and he does not believe any more big expenditures by Senate Leadership Fund or other McConnell-backed entities will help Strange out of the deep hole he is in with just over a month until the future holder of the U.S. Senate seat is picked. The Republican primary runoff winner is expected to easily defeat the Democrat in the general election.
“I think $14 million is exactly the problem they got, but with the results they got they better start wondering when they’re going to stop throwing away their money,” Moore told Breitbart News Sunday. “Attack ads aren’t working in this state. It’s obvious when an opponent attacks both of his opponents with negative ads or even one, but both opponents? They’ve been trying to manipulate this race from the very beginning and they’ve simply failed. I don’t know what they’re planning in the future. I expect they’re going to continue to come up and present some negative ads that are false in their nature because they got the money to do it and they know we’re strapped with money. But still, God has given the people vision to see through this.”
One of the key principles of Moore’s campaign against Strange and the Washington establishment is that he is pushing for a change to the Senate rules to lower the vote threshold to a simple majority rather than requiring 60 votes to pass bills. McConnell, and his allies like Strange, are publicly on record as opposing such rules changes. That sets up Moore as a stronger ally of President Trump’s should he win than Strange, as President Trump agrees that the Senate rules need to change. Trump’s public push for a Senate rules change has caused friction between him and McConnell.
“I think the people should understand that this is a rule—it’s not a Constitutional rule, it’s a Senate rule,” Moore told Breitbart News Sunday. “The Founding Fathers described when they preferred super majorities on things like vetoes of presidents, overriding a veto, or expelling a member from one of the two houses of Congress or passing a Constitutional amendment. They have a super majority rule which is simply a rule of anything over a majority which is one over half. It’s not in the Constitution. Quite frankly, it’s unconstitutional. And it’s preventing many bills from going through the Senate. They can’t even get to the floor because of the filibuster rule. A filibuster is different. That’s when you protest bills and speak against them. They can have ways to get that restricted but they can’t put a 60-vote rule and cling to that and say that’s what the Constitution says—it isn’t.”
Moore also said he believes that this race is especially symbolically important because it is for the seat that Sessions—a staunch conservative leader—held for 20 years.
“Jeff Sessions is very conservative,” Moore said. “We don’t need to lose that seat to a moderate, to somebody who won’t take a stand. People know me for taking stands on my principles. That’s what I’m known for. And that’s what the people like. Of course, that’s what I do of nature. And I think it’s important for another reason, which is that this is the prelude to the 2018 elections for senators all across the country. Whether they’re going to follow the people like McConnell, who wants to stalemate and keep things from moving, or they’re going to vote for a move, a change, people that will be people of action. Members of Congress need to stand up on behalf of this country and see that the agenda that President Trump was voted in on—of action to restrict illegals crossing the border, to do away with Obamacare, there’s nothing in the Constitution for Obamacare or any socialized medicine. It’s not within the power of Congress. We need to realize that if government takes over—socialized medicine—it’s going to make it a terrible situation. We’re going to go backwards instead of forwards on healthcare. We need to open up the state borders for health issues and insurance across state lines. That would bring the prices lower, the costs lower, the quality higher and it would give us better service.”
LISTEN TO ROY MOORE ON BREITBART NEWS SUNDAY ON SIRIUSXM PATRIOT CHANNEL 125:
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