Campaign

Bannon celebrates Roy Moore’s victory over Trump pick: ‘Revolution’ for GOP

by Ben Kamisar - 09/26/17 10:24 PM ET

Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon celebrated Roy Moore’s victory in Tuesday night’s GOP Senate primary runoff in Alabama as the beginning of a “revolution” for insurgent Republicans looking to challenge incumbent senators.

In remarks introducing Moore before his victory speech, Bannon recalled his comments at a pro-Moore rally on Monday night.

He pointed to Moore’s victory and Tuesday’s announcement by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that he’ll retire at the end of 2018 as proof that the insurgent right is on the rise. Corker had been targeted as a potential incumbent for Bannon and his allies to pick off in a GOP primary.

{mosads}”Last night we talked about starting a revolution with Judge Moore’s victory. Well, Sen. Corker stepped down today, he’s not going to run for reelection,” Bannon said.

“You are going to see, in state after state after state, people that follow the model of Judge Moore, that do not have to raise money from the elites, the crony capitalists, from the fat cats in Washington D.C., New York City and Silicon Valley.”

LIVE: Bannon reax at Moore party after seeing Trump tweet praising ROY pic.twitter.com/DflQ8DZMkl

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) September 27, 2017

Upon leaving the White House in August, Bannon returned to the conservative Breitbart News and became one of Moore’s biggest boosters both behind the scenes and eventually in public.

While Bannon was campaigning against President Trump’s pick in Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), Bannon repeatedly framed a vote for Moore as “a vote for Donald J. Trump.”

Bannon and his allies have been furiously advocating for Moore, a former state Supreme Court chief justice, in the hopes that a victory will spark a wave of primary challenges against establishment Republican senators.

One of those challengers is former Arizona state Sen. Kelli Ward, who is going up against Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of Trump’s most prominent critics in the GOP. She too signaled a wider victory in a statement congratulating Ward, arguing that the frustration with the Washington establishment that won Moore the primary is present in Arizona too.

Tags Bob Corker Jeff Flake Luther Strange