Battle for the soul of the Republican party rages on in Alabama race

Donald Trump can’t lose in Alabama. The candidate he has endorsed may win Tuesday’s primary runoff for the US Senate. If he doesn’t, the winner will be a man backed by much of the president’s base.

The race pits Luther Strange, the appointed incumbent of the seat vacated by attorney general Jeff Sessions, against Roy Moore, a controversial social conservative who has twice been removed as chief justice of the state supreme court.

Strange, a former lobbyist, is backed by the Republican establishment. A Super Pac aligned with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has spent more than $9m on the race; groups like the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Rifle Association have also spent on Strange’s behalf. This is because Strange is seen as a loyal Republican vote. Moore marches to the beat of his own drum, a steady tattoo of controversial and outlandish statements.

The fight has become the latest proxy battle in the seemingly never-ending fight between the Republican establishment and the grassroots of the party. That fight has taken on new contours.

Moore is the first candidate to be backed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon since he left the White House and has been heavily touted by Bannon’s pro-Trump website, Breitbart. A victory for Moore, also endorsed by members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, would embolden hardcore conservatives long disenchanted with GOP congressional leadership.

Establishment Republicans see Moore as a weak candidate who might force them to spend resources to beat a Democrat in deep red Alabama and who would, if elected, undermine McConnell’s slim majority in the Senate.

Such establishment support has made Strange a slightly ill-fitting match for a president who ran for the White House with disdain for politics as usual and a promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington.

Trump appeared with Strange at a rally in Huntsville on Friday. In a circuitous speech focused largely the NFL and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, the president both offered a wholehearted endorsement and hedged it.

The goal was to ensure votes from people like Deanna Brown of Huntsville, who said she supported Strange because “anybody that supports our president I’m going to support hands down”. It was also to persuade those like Mark Blevins, a history teacher at Buckhorn High School who was planning on voting for Moore.

“Roy Moore is a legend,” said Blevins. “He is a legend. Luther is a great man, Roy is a legend.”

Trump went out of his way to laud Strange, whom he referred to as “Big Luther”, praising his loyalty and insisting that he “doesn’t know Mitch McConnell”. Strange returned the compliment in brief introductory remarks, claiming Trump needed him to have enough votes to “stand up to Mitch McConnell”. The event was staffed by operatives from the National Republican Senate Committee, which is controlled by … Mitch McConnell.

Trump left himself some wiggle room, suggesting he might have made a tactical mistake by endorsing Strange, calling Moore “a good man” who he would campaign for if he prevailed. Dean Young, a close ally of Moore, told the Guardian on Saturday he was “feeling really good, especially after Trump came last night and was honest with the people of Alabama and the people of the nation”.

Young, who was wearing a MAGA hat and attending a bluegrass gospel barbecue in a rural part of the state, did think Trump might make a difference. However, as he spoke in front of a stage where both an American flag and a flag with a cross were flying, while musicians sang sadly about prayer being taken out of schools, he was confident in his candidate’s chances.

“I also think people of Alabama have watched Judge Moore for 25 years,” he said. “They know he’s honest and dependable. If he says something, he’s going to do it. He’ll stand up for his god, the Christian god if anyone in the world is wondering which god, and the constitution of the United States.”

Many of Trump’s most ardent supporters are in Moore’s camp. Former White House aides Bannon and Sebastian Gorka are backing him; so are Sarah Palin and Nigel Farage. On Friday a member of Trump’s cabinet, housing and urban development secretary Ben Carson, issued a statement of praise for Moore.

But the race is not solely about national dynamics. Moore has long been a controversial figure in Alabama. He was first elected chief justice of the state supreme court in 2000 and first removed in 2003. The controversy then was about his insistence on placing a monument to the Ten Commandments in his courthouse. A federal judge ordered it removed. Moore declined and was removed himself.

After two failed bids for the Republican nomination for governor and one for the White House, he ran again for chief justice in 2012. He won but was pushed out of office in 2016 for trying to keep Alabama courts from performing same-sex marriages, contrary to the US supreme court’s ruling in Obergefell v Hodges.

Moore’s contrary tendencies are deeply set. As an officer in Vietnam, he patrolled after dark, armed with sawed off shotgun, to see if his troops were smoking marijuana. As a result he made his bed out of sandbags, lest an angry enlisted man try to roll a grenade under him while he slept.

Moore has repeatedly made controversial statements. In March, he praised Vladimir Putin to a Guardian reporter and suggested the Russian strongman was “more akin to me than I know”. He also suggested in a speech in February that the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were a case of divine retribution.

The result is that, according to Young, voters will either be “voting for Judge Moore or against Judge Moore”.

Voters have reasons to be wary of Strange. A former state attorney general, his appointment to the Senate has come under scrutiny. It was made by former governor Robert Bentley, who has since resigned and pled guilty to two misdemeanors related to an attempt to cover up an affair with a staffer. The state’s top prosecutor thus accepted office from someone who was under investigation.

State auditor Jim Ziegler, a vocal Moore supporter, told the Guardian: “This is about local issues: Governor Bentley appointing Luther Strange under inappropriate circumstances.”

The result will have national repercussions, nonetheless. Those on the populist right of the Republican party are hoping to use it as springboard to primary fights in 2018. One ally of Steve Bannon told the Guardian the race “sets the stage for major elections in Nevada, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arizona in 2018”. All four states have incumbent Republican senators.

The winner will face a Democrat, Doug Jones, in the general election in December. The Republican will be heavily favored: it is nearly 10 years since Alabama elected a Democrat to statewide office. However, the race is starting to attract national attention. In early October, former vice-president Joe Biden will appear with Jones in Birmingham.