Jeff Sessions, who served three-and-a-half terms in the Senate before joining the Trump administration as Attorney General in 2017, is considering running to reclaim his former Alabama seat, Politico first reported.
Sessions, who ultimately fell out of favor with the president after recusing himself from the Mueller investigation, has until November 8 to enter an already-crowded Republican primary.
The winner of the intra-Republican contest will challenge Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who won the 2017 special election over Republican Roy Moore to fill Sessions’s vacant seat. Jones’ is largely considered the most vulnerable Democratic Senate seat in the 2020 elections.
Polling shows former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville leading the race at 32 percent, followed by Representative Bradley Byrne at 18 percent.
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, state representative Arnold Mooney, and Moore round out the rest of the field. Politico notes that Sessions has $2.5 million still left in his campaign account, which would already place him second in fundraising among GOP candidates behind Byrne, who has over $2.5 million in cash.
“We are hearing that Sessions is seriously considering running for Senate again and that polling indicates he would be in very good shape. The Club for Growth has in the past and would once again encourage him to run for that Senate seat,” David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, told Politico.
While it is unclear where Trump and Sessions personally stand, Sessions gave a speech at a fundraiser earlier this month in support of the president, who has publicly lambasted Sessions on Twitter in the past.
“[Trump is] relentlessly and actually honoring the promises he made to the American people,” Sessions said. “That’s why I still do support him.”
The former attorney general made light of his removal from the administration in the speech, and said he was “so proud of the work we were able to do in so many areas.” Sessions was also heavily critical of the Democratic political agenda of “more government” in the speech, and said that Trump is “exactly right” on fighting to “not let socialism take over this country.”
“The average voter does not like the Democratic agenda,” he said. “But we haven’t shown them sufficiently how much we need them and that we can care for them and are willing to listen to them about the things they care about. And special interests don’t get to run this country.”