Sessions not ruling out 2020 challenge against Jones in Alabama Senate race

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions declined to rule out challenging Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) for his old seat next year. 

“I haven’t made a formal announcement about the Senate race, but I am interested about the issues,” Sessions, who represented Alabama in the Senate for 20 years before becoming attorney general, said Wednesday at the SALT Conference in Las Vegas when asked about his political future.

{mosads}“I’d love to see us bring more intellectual heft behind those positions. I think it exists, and maybe I can contribute some in that,” he added, saying he backs several of President Trump’s policies on trade, foreign intervention and immigration. 

The comments come after Sessions told reporters Monday while leaving the Capitol that he had not discussed running for his old seat.

Jones, who was elected in ruby-red Alabama in a 2017 special election to replace Sessions, is considered the most vulnerable Senate Democrat in next year’s election cycle. Trump won the state by nearly 30 points in 2016.

Sessions departed the Justice Department in November after a tumultuous tenure that was characterized by a publicly acrimonious relationship with Trump, who often railed against his attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. 

It is unclear how his feud with Trump has impacted his standing in Alabama, where he ran for reelection to the Senate unopposed in 2014 and won more than 97 percent of the vote.

Neither the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee nor Jones’s campaign immediately responded to requests for comment from The Hill.