Alabama GOP Senate primary heads to a runoff between Britt, Brooks

Alabama’s GOP Senate primary is projected to head to a runoff after no candidate clinched 50 percent support in the race Tuesday. 

The two candidates reaching the June 21 runoff are Katie Britt, a former top aide to retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R), whose seat she is running for, and Rep. Mo Brooks (R). 

The Associated Press called the race around 11:45 p.m. ET.

The runoff has been one of the ugliest of the midterm cycle so far, with the candidates calling into question their opponents’ conservative credentials and fealty to former President Trump. 

Brooks, a close Trump ally, started out as the frontrunner in the race and won the former president’s endorsement. However, after lackluster fundraising and dropping poll numbers, Trump rescinded his endorsement in March over Brooks’s past argument that the GOP grassroots should move on from the 2020 election, which Trump and his allies have said was fraudulent. 

Brooks’s decline was quickly followed by a surge for Mike Durant, the former Army helicopter pilot who was shot down in the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia in 1993. However, his polling numbers later dropped after a flood of attacks from Britt questioning his loyalty to the Second Amendment and ties to Alabama. 

More recently, Britt has consistently held the lead in the polls, but well below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Meanwhile, Brooks has risen from the dead and is running neck-and-neck with Durant for the second spot.