For several weeks, U.S. Army veteran Mike Durant was atop the polling leaderboard in Alabama’s U.S. Senate Republican primary, ahead of Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) and former Business Council of Alabama president and CEO Katie Britt, who last week topped both Durant and Brooks with 45% of the vote.
Since Britt could not obtain more than 50% to avert a runoff, she will face Brooks, who earned 29% of the vote, in a June 21 runoff election.
Early indications were that Durant would back Brooks if he missed the runoff, but that will not be the case.
In comments given to Alabama-based 1819 News, Durant called the process “broken” and expressed his disappointment in the outcome.
“The process is as broken as you can possibly imagine it being,” Durant said to 1819 News’ Ray Melick. “It’s not about it being a ‘contact’ sport. It’s about integrity and being truthful.”
“People should not ask why we have the kind of people we have in Washington D.C. if we allow that sort of behavior and say, ‘It’s just politics,'” he continued. “That’s not politics. It’s corruption. It should be illegal. It went way beyond what I imagined. Back in the fall, when I looked at this race, part of why I entered was seeing the field and asking myself, ‘Who is going to step up? Why isn’t anyone stepping up?’ There are a lot of qualified people, but nobody wants to [run for office] and deal with this.”
The Army veteran known for his 1993 Black Hawk Down heroics said he was not supporting Brooks nor Britt, adding that he would not vote in the June 21 runoff.
“I’m not going to vote,” Durant said. “Katie Britt doesn’t deserve to be a senator. Mo Brooks has been in politics for 40 years, and all he does is run his mouth. If that is the best we have, we’re in trouble.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor