Trump fights for soul of GOP in “Strange” Alabama senate race

The race for Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat in Alabama, with the election just a few days away, has become a weird proxy war for the soul of the GOP.

It’s Luther Strange, the former Alabama district attorney who has been serving in Sessions’ place since January, vs. Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court justice, and with President Trump throwing his support behind Strange, the race has drawn national attention in a way that special elections often don’t. Still, it’s going to be tiny: Fewer than 20 percent of Republican voters are expected to turn out for it.

The Republican primary is on Tuesday, and the winner will face off against Democratic challenger Doug Jones in December. But in the solidly red state where Republicans haven’t lost a Senate race since 1992, the Republican primary is more likely than not the real race for Sessions’ seat.

READ: Alabama doesn’t care Trump is backing a “swamp” candidate for senate

On the issues, the two candidates are virtually identical: Both are running to rubber-stamp Trump policies. But they represent very different things to the GOP.

Here are five things to watch in Alabama:

There’s a ton of cash in this tiny race. Strange has raised nearly $4 million for his campaign, and he’s spent it all, according to FEC filings from Sept. 6 reviewed by Open Secrets. Moore, meanwhile raised $1.4 million and spent $1 million.

And it’s not just their own campaign coffers that are swelling: Outside players are chipping in for attack ads, too. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Super PAC is set to spend $8 million to try to keep Moore from taking the seat. The National Rifle Association’s PAC is spending loads of money on Strange — over $1 million. And Moore has some big-spending supporters, too, though fewer than Strange, like the pro-Trump Great American PAC, which has shelled out some $20,000 on online voter contact.

Trump’s been vocal about his support for Strange, tweeting repeatedly about it and even going down to Alabama to speak at a Strange campaign rally.

But Breitbart, with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon back as editor in chief, is slamming Strange at every opportunity. The far right website has published dozens of articles on the race. It went so far as to question the expected crowd size at Trump’s rally with Strange. Bannon is throwing his and Breitbart’s support behind the more radical Moore.

Both Strange and Moore are Republicans, but Breitbart and Moore have tried to paint Strange as the establishment candidate, pointing out that he’s a former lobbyist who worked to pass international free trade deals that, Breitbart says, cost the U.S. jobs.

And the race has caused even more infighting among other GOP sects. McConnell’s support, for instance, is being derided by outsider Republican figures like Sarah Palin and Chuck Norris, both of whom are backing Moore.

Joe Biden, meanwhile, has been hitting the campaign trail with the Democratic challenger, Doug Jones.

And he acts very little like a professional politician. In a rambling two-hour on-the-record car ride with a reporter from the Washington Post, Moore’s conservative radicalism was on full display. During the conversation, Moore articulated the central premise of his candidacy: that removing the sovereignty of a Christian God from government is an affront both to Moore’s biblical savior and the Constitution.

The former chief justice of Alabama is a hardcore evangelical. He’s twice been kicked off the bench for flouting judicial orders on religious grounds.

In 2003, a federal judge ordered him to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom in Alabama. “Like a soldier ordered to murder civilians,” according to the Post, he wouldn’t do it, and he was removed from office for defying the order.

He doesn’t believe in evolution, which he summed up as a belief that “we came from a snake.”

He carries with him at all times a pamphlet that details his legal argument for God’s supremacy.

“One thing I do not want you to do, because it’s not right, is to say that I believe in biblical punishments,” he told the Post. “I’ve been accused of saying I want to kill homosexuals because the Bible says. And I don’t.”

And in a debate between the candidates on Wednesday, Moore let slip a telling remark: He said he wants to “get rid of transgister (sic) troops in our bathrooms.”

Strange, the de facto incumbent in the race, has been serving in the Senate already since Sessions became attorney general. But Strange was appointed to the seat he now holds by a governor whom Strange was likely investigating while Strange was attorney general of Alabama.

Strange has kept mum about any investigation, but in November, he’d asked lawmakers to hold off on impeachment until his office completed “related work.” The first thing Strange’s successor did was to go public with the investigation.

Former Gov. Robert Bentley resigned shortly after appointing Strange amid a sex scandal and his failing to file a campaign finance report, for which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sentence. He was being impeached for using government resources to pursue his affair with a young staffer and using state law enforcement to keep it secret.

Both Bentley and Strange have denied that there was anything shady about the appointment.

During a moderator-less debate between the Republicans on Wednesday night, Moore said “There’s a God in Heaven that is in this campaign,” he said, according to the local news site AL.com.

“With all due respect, I don’t think God is on your side,” Strange responded said. “I don’t think God is on my side. … But one thing I know is the president is on my side.”

That’s what Strange has harped on over and over and over on the campaign trail. In a red state where the president is popular, Trump’s endorsement carries weight for Strange.

And Trump keeps calling him “Big” Luther Strange because Strange is actually huge: He’s 6 feet 9 inches tall.