Category: U.S. House race 2020

In the Weeds: A Career of Fighting Has Led Byrne to Senate Showdown

MONTGOMERY — Bradley Byrne is a fighter.

That’s what Alabama’s 1st District Congressman says differentiates him from the field of other candidates in the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, and there’s plenty of evidence that his previous experience backs that up.

Over a political career that has taken him from the state school board and the state Senate to the Alabama Community College System chancellor’s office and the U.S. House of Representatives, Byrne’s fights have been famous.

Perhaps the most successful was Byrne’s bout with the state’s two-year college system, which had been mired in a patronage scandal until he, a reform-minded governor and federal prosecutors came in to clean it up.

Perhaps the least successful was a run for governor in 2010 that saw him on a quixotic quest to take on the then-all-powerful state teachers’ association, only for that group to marshal untold resources to defeat him in the end.

Now Byrne finds himself in the middle of another high-profile fight as he seeks to win a U.S. Senate seat by first outmatching two better-known Republican rivals in former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville. The winner of the Republican primary — or runoff, if needed — will face incumbent Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November. Read more.

Jones and Byrne Have Stacked Up Millions to Lead Fundraising in the US Senate Race.

Incumbent Democrat Doug Jones and Republican Bradley Byrne already have millions of dollars in their campaign accounts as the field begins to form for Alabama’s 2020 U.S. Senate race.

In reports filed this month with the Federal Election Commission, Jones listed a cash balance of $3.09 million at the end of the first quarter of this year. Byrne, the congressman from Mobile who is giving up his House seat to run for the Senate, reported a balance of $2.04 million.

Candidates are required to file quarterly financial reports with the FEC once they raise $5,000 in contributions. Byrne and Jones are the first to file in the Senate Race. Others have filed in the race for each of Alabama’s seven U.S. House districts. Read more.