Despite Trump’s endorsement for Luther Strange, former Alabama supreme court chief justice Roy Moore is leading the polls ahead of Tuesday’s election

Tuesday’s Senate primary in Alabama will be a test of how far Donald Trump’s endorsement can sway an election.

The three men leading the tight race on the Republican side have all been enthusiastic about the president.

Congressman Mo Brooks has said he votes with Trump’s agenda “95% of the time”, while former Alabama supreme court chief justice Roy Moore and incumbent senator Luther Strange have both reached higher for inspiration.

“President Trump is the greatest thing that has happened to this country,” Strange said this summer. “I consider it a biblical miracle that he’s there.”

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“God puts people in positions in positions he wants,” said Moore in May. “I believe he sent Donald Trump in there to do what Donald Trump can do.”

But it was Strange who won Trump’s endorsement, the president tweeting on 8 August: “Senator Luther Strange has done a great job representing the people of the Great State of Alabama. He has my complete and total endorsement!”

The move was seen as a victory for Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who is backing Strange, and a blow to Brooks in particular. The Alabama congressman had criticized the president for his public attacks on Jeff Sessions, whose appointment as Trump’s attorney general led to him leaving the Senate and a special election for his seat.

But despite Trump’s endorsement, Moore is leading in the polls – although he faces a tough path to victory.

Alabama requires candidates to get 50% of the vote in a primary to clinch their party’s nomination, so the three Republican candidates are all vying for two spots in a September runoff.

Moore is a controversial figure who has twice been forced from his position as the state’s chief justice. First, in 2003, he was ousted for violating a federal court’s order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from grounds of the Alabama supreme court and then, in 2016, he was suspended for refusing to enforce the supreme court’s ruling on gay marriage.

Recently, he told the Guardian that “maybe Putin is right” and “more akin to me than I know” given the Russian leader’s stance on gay marriage. Moore also suggested that the US could be described using Reagan’s words about Russia as “the focus of evil”.

“You could say that about America, couldn’t you?” he said. “We promote a lot of bad things.” A specific example, Moore said, was gay marriage.

But while Moore is leading in polls in Tuesday’s primary, he might have a difficult time getting a majority in a runoff.

His most likely opponent in a two-man race is Strange, a hulking 6ft 9in former college basketball player who reached the Senate under controversial circumstances. As Alabama’s attorney general, he was conducting an investigation of then-governor Robert Bentley for ethics violations related to an extramarital affair. Bentley appointed him to replace Sessions, sparking accusations he was doing so in order to impede the investigation. The governor later resigned from office and pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges.

Strange has been the beneficiary of millions of dollars of spending from the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super Pac closely tied to McConnell. Most of the money has gone to attack Brooks, in an attempt to keep the four-term member of Congress from earning the second place in the runoff.

Brooks is a member of the Freedom Caucus, the hard-right group that has long been a thorn in the side of House Republican leadership. In contrast, Strange has been a steadfastly loyal vote for McConnell since joining the Senate. The result is that Brooks has turned his campaign into a referendum on the Senate majority leader and the “swamp” in Washington. Brooks’s campaign bus is bedecked with a sign that says “ditch Mitch” and his campaign rhetoric echoes Trump’s demands that the Senate end the legislative filibuster.

The problem for Brooks, who has gained the backing of many of most ardent pro-Trump media personalities like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, is that Trump endorsed Strange, sending out his tweet again early on Monday morning. A Super Pac tied to Trump has also announced that it will spend $200,000 on Strange’s behalf to get out the vote.

The president added on Tuesday morning:

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Big day in Alabama. Vote for Luther Strange, he will be great!

Despite his backing for Strange being interpreted as a win for McConnell, Trump has since echoed Brooks in repeatedly criticizing the Senate majority leader in recent days for failing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In a new campaign ad, Brooks appeals directly to Trump, calling McConnell and Strange “weak” and telling the president that they failed him.

Brooks caused controversy with a previous campaign ad that used his experience as a survivor of June’s mass shooting at a congressional baseball practice to show his commitment to gun rights.

Moore has tried to dismiss the President’s endorsement of Strange, saying on Wednesday: “I think the people are not voting for President Trump. They’re voting for his agenda, which I firmly believe in.”

On the Democratic side, an unknown named Robert K Kennedy is currently beating Democratic favorite Doug Jones in polls. Jones is a former US attorney who has been endorsed by party luminaries including Joe Biden and John Lewis. But neither is considered to have much of a chance of beating the Republicans in this deep red state.

Even if Moore, considered the most vulnerable candidate at the general election, were to become the nominee, he would still win, said Liam Donovan, a former NRSC staffer.

“The Trump era has shifted the political winds” towards the GOP in Alabama, said Donovan, noting that while Moore isn’t “the most popular guy in Alabama”, the tight margin in the United States Senate means Republicans would loyally back the controversial judge in a general election.