2020 election
Tuberville, Sessions Fundraising Neck-and-Neck for Senate Seat
Tommy Tuberville and Jeff Sessions have been running almost dollar-for-dollar in recent weeks as they raise cash for their campaigns for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, according to reports they filed this week with the Federal Elections Commission.
Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach, narrowly led a field of seven candidates in the GOP primary on March 3. He will meet Sessions, who held the Senate seat for almost two decades until he resigned in early 2017 to become President Donald Trump’s first attorney general, in a runoff on July 14.
The runoff had been scheduled for March 31, but Gov. Kay Ivey postponed it because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In reports covering the period from Feb. 13 to March 31, Tuberville listed total receipts of $788,493 and expenditures of $1.44 million. He reported a cash balance of $458,819.
Since the campaign began last year, Tuberville has raised $3.30 million and spent $2.84 million.
Sessions listed net receipts of $749,273 during the 17-day period that ended March 31. He reported spending $1.90 million and having an account balance of $749,235.
Overall for the campaign, Sessions has taken in $1.75 million and transferred $2.48 million from his previous Senate campaigns. He has spent $3.86 million since entering the race.
The winner of the July runoff will face freshman Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, whose fundraising has dwarfed that of both GOP hopefuls, in the November general election.
In his report to the FEC on Wednesday, Jones listed contributions of $1.67 million during the period from Feb. 13 to March 31 and expenditures of $828,628. He showed an account balance of $8.26 million.
Jones has raised $15.38 million and spent $9.83 million since he beat Republican Roy Moore in a special election for the Senate seat in December 2017.
The GOP primary in February quickly evolved into a contest of who would be the strongest and most effective supporter of Trump. Both candidates, along with third-place finisher Bradley Byrne, spent millions of dollars on broadcast ads touting their fealty to the president and questioning the loyalty of their opponents.
There has been a hiatus in the advertising campaign since the postponement of the runoff was announced.
See the lists of contributors: Contributors in the U.S. Senate Race