Bannon wages war against Trump-backed candidate in Alabama

The ex-Trump strategist is all in for Roy Moore, who's competing against an incumbent backed by the president and Mitch McConnell.

By ALEX ISENSTADT 08/28/2017 09:44 PM EDT

Just-departed White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is breaking from President Donald Trump in the closely watched Alabama Senate special election.

During a closed-door meeting with powerful conservatives in Washington last week, Bannon declared that he's supporting former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore over Trump-endorsed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, according to two people who were present. Bannon, who just over a week ago left the White House to rejoin the conservative website Breitbart News, said that he is looking to activate the conservative base to Moore’s cause.

Appearing before a meeting of the secretive Conservative Action Project, Bannon made it clear that he supported Moore, a favorite among evangelicals, but was careful not to cast it as a break with the president. Rather, he said, it was an act of opposition toward Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is supporting Strange and has made the race a top political priority.

Bannon presented the late September primary runoff as a defining battle between the conservative base and the GOP establishment, saying that it pit those who elected Trump against those who resisted him. The Conservative Action Project is an umbrella organization of dozens of prominent groups representing various viewpoints of the conservative and tea party movements.

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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/28/bannon-moore-alabama-senate-trump-242120