The two contenders who are most actively competing for Trump’s backing are Rep. Bradley Byrne and former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville. Both have been running plenty of TV ads promoting their fealty to the administration, and Byrne has a new spot out featuring a clip of Trump thanking him.

Each man has also tried to get some one-on-one time with Trump to make their case for his support, though with decidedly limited success so far. Zengerle reports that back in early November, just before Jeff Sessions entered the race to reclaim the Senate seat he gave up to become attorney general, Tuberville received word that he could speak directly to Trump if he called his White House assistant.

Tuberville made the call, but he never got put through to Trump. A few days later, after Sessions announced his bid despite Tuberville’s advisers predictions that he’d stay out, the former coach fired them and hired a new group.

Byrne, by contrast, managed to get a spot in Trump’s box at the Alabama-LSU game around that same time; Tuberville, as Zengerle writes, was “stuck in a luxury box a few doors down.” Byrne, who said in 2016 that Trump was “not fit to be president,” did his best to impress his party’s leader at the event by imploring the already rancorous stadium crowd to cheer louder for Trump by standing up, wildly waving his arms, and shouting, “More! More! More!” The congressman’s enthusiastic performance, which an unnamed Sessions advisor compared to a seizure, didn’t get him much time to talk to Trump, though.

Sessions, who had a famously awful relationship with Trump as his attorney general, probably won’t be getting an endorsement from him, but he may still avoid getting any Twitter abuse before the primary. While an unnamed Alabama Republican relays that Trump jokingly told him, “If Jeff Sessions is nominated, I’m going to come to Alabama and campaign for the Democrat,” Zengerle reports that intervention by Sen. Richard Shelby and others has made him less wary of a Sessions’ victory. Byrne and Tuberville’s teams are still holding out hope that Trump will see something on Fox News that reignites his hatred of Sessions, a prospect that absolutely no one can rule out.

One candidate who has already been on the wrong end of a Trump tweet is 2017 nominee Roy Moore, who is running again despite his loss against Jones. Back in May, Trump told his followers that, while he had “NOTHING against Roy Moore,” whom multiple women have said preyed on them when they were teenagers, Moore “cannot win!” Trump’s missive may have made a difference: Only a few polls have been released in recent months, but they all show Moore performing poorly in the primary.

No matter what Trump does in the next month, though, whoever wins the GOP nod in March will have a strong chance to beat Jones in this very red state. Jones, though, won’t be going down without a fight, though. The incumbent raised $1.9 million for the fourth quarter and ended 2019 with a hefty $5.5 million war chest, which is far more than what anyone else had available.

Sessions only raised $312,000 during the first two months of his comeback campaign, but he had $2.5 million on-hand thanks to left over cash from his last Senate stint. Byrne took in a smaller $217,000 for the quarter but had a similar $2.2 million on-hand, while Tuberville raised $531,000 and had $1.5 million to spend.

State Rep. Arnold Mooney, who hasn’t attracted much attention during this campaign, actually outraised Byrne by bringing in $246,000, though he only had $322,000 on-hand. Moore, who has always been a poor fundraiser, took in only $45,000 and had a small $44,000 war chest.

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