Hotair
And you know who that doesn’t help? As expected, Katie Britt sailed to an easy victory over Mo Brooks in the Alabama GOP primary to replace retiring Richard Shelby in the US Senate. The win all but seals her general-election win in the deep red state, and positions Britt for a very long run in the upper chamber:
Katie Britt’s runoff victory Tuesday over Rep. Mo Brooks puts her in the position to be the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama.
But to political insiders, what is just as important for Alabama residents, is she is positioned to be one of the youngest senators from Alabama since Reconstruction.
“I was told, you’re too young, wait your turn,” Britt, 40, said to a cheering throng of supporters during a victory celebration Tuesday in Montgomery. “One thing is clear. Alabama has spoken. We want new blood. We want fresh blood.”
On that point, it’s not just Alabama that’s speaking. There will be plenty of analysis over whether Donald Trump’s endorsements had any impact here, but that impact appears minimal at best. Trump endorsed Brooks before the runoff and Britt afterward, which didn’t change the trajectory of either candidate much at all. An establishment/populist narrative doesn’t work here either, since Brooks was more the populist candidate in this race, while Britt’s work as Shelby’s chief of staff for two years and another two years as CEO of the Business Council of Alabama put her more in the establishment mold.
In the end, voters in Alabama wanted a younger, fresher face in Washington. So did voters in the TX-34 House runoff last week that sent Mayra Flores to Congress as the first Republican from the Rio Grande Valley in, well, forever. That has developed into a pattern in the midterm Senate primaries, notes Aaron Blake at the Washington Post, and not just in the GOP:
Britt also stands out in another way: She’s just 40 years old. If and when she’s elected, she’ll almost definitely be the youngest woman in the Senate.
But she’s the latest young candidate with a good shot at joining that chamber of Congress. In Ohio, the GOP nominee is 37-year-old J.D. Vance. In Nevada, it’s 43-year-old Adam Laxalt. And in Arizona, Trump recently backed 35-year-old Blake Masters, who appears to be gaining in the race for the GOP nomination. Meanwhile, the…
