The Senate Leadership Fund, which spent almost $5 million to get Luther Strange elected to the Senate, won't be doing the same thing for Roy Moore.

That is, unless Democrat Doug Jones emerges as a threat to upset Moore in the Dec. 12 election in a state with a stronghold Republican electorate.

"This is Alabama, not New York or California," SLF spokesman Chris Pack told AL.com in an email. "Democrats would first need to demonstrate this is an actual race before anything is considered."

Contacted by AL.com, the Jones campaign had "no comment" on the SLF statement, according to spokesman Sebastian Kitchen.

The SLF became synonymous with negative ads during the Republican Senate primary, spending millions to trash Strange's top challengers -- first U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, followed by Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Strongly influenced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Washington super PAC operates by law independent of any candidate campaigns but still can work to sway supporters to vote for their preferred candidates.

In the GOP Senate primary, that effort focused primarily on attack ads against Brooks and Moore.

According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the SLF spent more than $4.7 million to win the seat for Strange. It's likely that tally will increase since the most recent FEC filing came three weeks before the runoff between Moore and Strange.

Those efforts, however, were largely unproductive.

Strange finished second in the Republican primary in August - six points behind Moore and 13 points ahead of Brooks. However, Brooks maintained that President Trump's endorsement of Strange one week before voters went to the polls tilted a neck-and-neck race in the appointed senator's favor.

In the GOP runoff since Moore did not receive a majority of the primary votes, he defeated Strange by 10 points despite visits to the state by Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

The SLF issued a statement of support for Moore the night he defeated Strange in the runoff. But that support made no promises about money.

"While we were honored to have fought hard for Big Luther, Judge Roy Moore won this nomination fair and square and he has our support, as it is vital that we keep this seat in Republican hands," the SLF statement said, in part, on Sept. 26.

As for the SLF vowing to state out of Alabama unless Democrats "demonstrate this is an actual race," two public polls conducted since the GOP runoff have Moore leading Jones by six and eight points, respectively. That's a smaller margin for Moore than the typical double-digit leads the judge held over Strange in polling.

The SLF did not address the Moore/Jones polling numbers when asked directly by AL.com.

It's possible, of course, that Moore's campaign criticism of McConnell is a factor. Moore has called for McConnell to be replaced as leader of the Senate and the populist candidate has repeatedly vowed to shake up Washington politics if he's elected.

Trump and Pence have each tweeted support of Moore in the aftermath of his defeat of Strange.