Mo Brooks concedes to Katie Britt in GOP Senate runoff

Mo Brooks acknowledged that Katie Britt has won the Alabama Republican Senate runoff Tuesday, but he described Britt as the second of two Democratic nominees.

Brooks, the six-term congressman from Huntsville, hammered Democrats — including Britt among those Democrats — in a speech to supporters at his watch party that began about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, just over an hour after the polls closed.

“We are sending to Washington D.C. the the exact opposite of what we need in the United States Senate,” Brooks said. “But the voters have spoken. They might not have spoken wisely. They may have been seduced by brazenly false advertising. But nonetheless, they have spoken and I respect them.”

Brooks said he wanted to congratulate victors but said he “didn’t like it.”

“Congratulations to the Alabama Democratic Party,” Brooks said. “They now have two nominees in the general election — Will Boyd and my opponent, who they endorsed and helped push over the finish line both in the primary and in the runoff. So congratulations to you.”

Brooks also said that Michael Durant, who finished third in the GOP primary, was unfairly tarnished by attack ads from super PACs supporting Britt.

With about 60% of the vote in, Britt has received 65% percent of the vote while Brooks has 35%. The Associated Press called the race for Britt at 8:29 p.m. And with 99% of the vote in, Britt had 51% of the vote in Brooks’ home county of Madison.

“I’d be remiss if I did not congratulate the Alabama Democratic Party for helping to ensure that the Democratic nominee in the Republican primary won,” Brooks said. “Congratulations to the Alabama Democratic Party.”

Though he did not refer to him by name, Brooks alluded to a tweet by Wade Perry, the outgoing executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party, that praised Britt and described her as “pretty awesome” and said she was “super helpful” in Democrat Doug Jones win the 2017 Senate special election over Roy Moore.

And he noted former Democratic congressman Parker Griffith’s support of Britt. Brooks defeated Griffith, a Huntsville oncologist, in the Republican primary in 2010 en route to winning his first term in Congress. Griffith later switched to the Democratic Party.

“You know you’re on the right side of the issues when you’re being opposed in the Republican primary by the executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party,” Brooks said. “You know you’re doing the right thing for America when you’re being opposed by the most prominent Democrat in north Alabama, Parker Griffith.”

Brooks said he did not consider his campaign a failure because it stood for principles that he believed in.

“I will have more time to be a better husband to my wife,” Brooks said. “That’s a big win. “I will have more time to be a better father to children, that’s a big, big win. I will have more time to enjoy my 13 grandchildren. That’s a big, big, big win.”

Brooks, 68, indicated his career in politics would end at the expiration of his congressional term in January 2023.

“It’s time for me to hand the torch over to patriots who will continue to fight for America. We have a lot of people from the younger generation that are willing to carry that torch. And I’m so proud of them. And I want them to fight for America as I have. But in the meantime, I’m going to start enjoying that huge, huge win I’m of being able to be with my family and, in particular, my grandchildren.”

As he pushed forward into the runoff, Brooks struggled to find support. In fundraising, he finished far behind Britt — who raised more than twice as much money and spent almost twice as much. Britt’s latest spending included billboards statewide touting Trump’s endorsement.

And even in qualifying for the runoff, Brooks received only 29% of the vote while Britt flirted with winning the GOP nomination outright in getting 45% of the vote. Eclipsing more than 50% of the vote is needed to avoid a runoff.

And finishing second in last month’s primary with 71% of the electorate supporting other candidates, Brooks reveled in his comeback just two months removed from losing Trump’s endorsement.

“Two months ago, the experts declared our campaign was dead in the water,” Brooks said in a boisterous speech to supporters on primary election night. “Today, I guess, call me Lazarus.”

Before the primary, Brooks campaigned with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and, leading up to the runoff, with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. There was also a campaign stop with Women for America First – a pro-Trump group that organized the Jan. 6, 2021 rally where Brooks spoke hours before the siege of the U.S. Capitol.

Still, Brooks’ messages of voter fraud and touting his conservative record – emphasizing stances on immigration and gun rights – failed to gain substantial traction.

Brooks launched his campaign 15 months ago, becoming the first candidate to enter the race and immediately staked out positions that he has clung to throughout his campaign: The issue of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election – of which there has been no widespread evidence – and his claim of being the “only candidate for the Senate with a record of proven conservative leadership that Alabama voters can see and trust.”

Trump’s anticipated endorsement came two weeks later on April 7, 2021 — a rousing statement of support in which the former president proclaimed that Brooks “is fighting for voter integrity (like few others).”

In the end, that may have represented the high point for Brooks’ Senate campaign.

Trump headlined a campaign rally for Brooks in Cullman in August 2021 at a time when Britt was a newcomer to the race and largely an unknown to Alabama voters. Durant had not yet entered the race.

That humid night in Cullman, though, perhaps marked the beginning of the end for Brooks. In addressing the crowd, he urged them to move past the 2020 election – no matter the issues that he claimed still occurred – and look ahead to the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election. The responding boos were like figurative tomatoes thrown at Brooks in protest of his admonitions.

Brooks quickly backpedaled in appeasing the crowd eager to keep their focus on the past while still attempting to nudge them toward the future.

“All right, well, look back at it, but go forward and take advantage of it,” Brooks said in response to the boos. “We have got to win in 2022. We’ve got to win in 2024.”

It was that exchange that Trump cited in withdrawing his support of Brooks, though seven months had passed since the rally before the former president kneecapped Brooks’ campaign. Trump said he told Brooks as he walked on stage to speak that he “blew the election” with those comments, though Brooks said Trump had said no such thing to him.

Trump aside, though, Brooks’ campaign was struggling anyway. A day before Trump rescinded the endorsement, an independent poll had Brooks running a distant third in the race behind frontrunner Durant and Britt.

Brooks rallied, of course, as Durant’s support waned amid a wave of attack ads and the surfacing of a 2011 video of a speech Durant gave in which he advocated gun restrictions in high-crime U.S. cities. Durant maintained his comments were mischaracterized – though the video showed him speaking the words – and he went from leading polls to acknowledging on the eve of the primary he would likely finish third, saying he would support Brooks if that happened.

After the primary, though, Durant had a change of heart and said he would not support either Brooks or Britt and no momentum emerged of Durant supporters shifting to Brooks.

In the end, Britt not only won the votes, she also won the fundraising.

Britt raised nearly $7.5 million in the 2022 election cycle, more than doubling the $3 million raised by Brooks, according to Open Secrets analysis of federal campaign finance records. Britt was also supported by nearly $8 million in spending by outside groups and political action committees, according to the group.

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