MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions in recent days rolled through Iowa, Nevada and the panhandle of Florida to stump for Republican Donald Trump.
The first U.S. senator to endorse the outsider candidate turned Republican nominee has emerged as a key surrogate deployed to battleground states in the waning hours of the campaign.
“This is a movement. Look at what is happening. The American people are not happy with their government,” Sessions said as he first endorsed Trump in February.
Sessions’ role in the inner orbit of the Republican nominee has led to speculation of an eventual presidential appointment if Trump should manage to close the polling gap and prove victorious Tuesday.
While Sessions, 69, has downplayed the prospect, his close association with the Republican nominee has raised the national profile of the junior senator from Alabama.
“When Mr. Trump wins this election …. I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams that he would not be a part of that conversation simply because he has been one of Mr. Trump’s closest aides and confidants and helped guide the ship into the White House,” Alabama Republican Party Chairwoman Terry Lathan said.
A presidential appointment for Sessions would also cause a shake-up in the state political food chain, leaving vacant a U.S. Senate seat, a coveted office that usually only comes open with an incumbent’s death or retirement, to be filled by appointment. It is a titillating possibility for state politicians trying to make their plans for 2018 races. For that reason, some gubernatorial contenders are expected to hold off on campaign plans until after Nov. 8.
“There is no doubt that Montgomery is full of people right now salivating at the prospect of being appointed to the U.S. Senate,” said Scott Beason, a former state senator and host of a conservative radio talk show.
The pairing of the bombastic billionaire and the polite southerner at first seems an unlikely one. While divergent in style, the pair found common ground with tough stances on immigration and against free trade agreements. Sessions, a conservative popular with tea party voters, brought Republican “street cred” to the early days of the Trump campaign, said Natalie Davis, a pollster and political science professor at Birmingham-Southern College.
“Sessions is an outsider in terms of Washington thinking,” said former Alabama congressman Glen Browder. “It is not surprising Trump has done well in Alabama. There has always been a certain populism in Alabama - a distrust of the establishment,” Browder said.
In turn, Trump has raised the national profile of Sessions, who previously was perhaps best known outside of his home state as an ardent hardliner on immigration.
Analysts say a Trump defeat - even a resounding one- on Tuesday would likely bring few, if any, consequences for Sessions in deeply red Alabama, which hasn’t gone for a Democrat in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Alabama is more likely to reward Sessions for supporting Trump, even if he loses the presidential race.
“I think Jeff Sessions emerges just as strong,” Browder said.
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