Jeff Sessions, Tommy Tuberville headed to runoff in Alabama GOP Senate race

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and onetime Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville will face off March 31 in a runoff for the Alabama Republican Senate nomination.

Sessions spent 20 years as a Republican senator representing Alabama, stepping down in 2017 in order to serve as President Trump's attorney general. After a difficult tenure, during which Trump routinely mocked Sessions and said he wished he chose someone else to serve as attorney general, Sessions was forced out in 2018.

With 75 percent of precincts reporting, Tuberville had 33 percent of the vote, with Sessions close behind at 31 percent. Because neither candidate received more than 50 percent of the primary's votes, they are being forced into a runoff. The winner will go up against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November.

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In a 2017 special election held to fill Sessions' vacant seat, Jones defeated Republican candidate Roy Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court judge who was accused of sexual misconduct by several women. Moore decided to run again this year, but came in a distant fourth place.