Skip to content
RollCall logo

Podcasts

Podcast: Alabama’s Strange Election Turns Anti-McConnell But Pro-Trump

The Big Story, Episode 66

GOP candidate for Senate Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., speaks with attendees after the U.S. Senate candidate forum held by the Shelby County Republican Party in Pelham, Ala., on Friday, Aug. 4, 2017. Sen. Strange is running in the special election to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
GOP candidate for Senate Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., speaks with attendees after the U.S. Senate candidate forum held by the Shelby County Republican Party in Pelham, Ala., on Friday, Aug. 4, 2017. Sen. Strange is running in the special election to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
By Jason Dick and Bridget Bowman
Posted August 9, 2017 at 4:02pm

CQ Roll Call’s senior political reporter Bridget Bowman says Republicans competing for Jeff Sessions’ Senate seat in Alabama are striving to tell primary voters just how much they support Donald Trump and, perhaps surprisingly, are using Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a punching bag.

Show Notes:

Recent Stories

The office of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Sunday afternoon sent this photo of he and his wife, Elaine Chao. Submitted by the office of Sen. Mitch McConnell

After weeks of questions, McConnell provides information on health

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., talks with reporters outside the Capitol on Sept. 11, 2025.

Graham’s death upends primary season further

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., conducts a Senate Budget Committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday, June 16, 2026.

Lindsey Graham, defense hawk and four-term senator, dead at 71

Campaign workers erect signs before a Graham Platner event in Portland, Maine, on June 7. Now the state party is scrambling to find a replacement.

Race for Platner alternative takes shape

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Capitol on June 24, 2026. Trump is flanked from left by Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rick Scott, R-Fla., John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Trump: Definitely not signing bipartisan housing bill

President Donald Trump rings the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to mark the launch of Trump investment accounts for some U.S. children in the Oval Office on Monday.

Government-seeded accounts could test Trump’s ‘communists’ claim