Trump Won in Alabama, Here's Why

As the results came in showing Judge Roy Moore defeated Luther Strange, MSNBC's breaking news banner read "Bannon Defeats Trump in Alabama."

It was predictable, so much so I had been telling friends MSNBC would run that exact headline.

But the truth is usually different from what MSNBC says. Trump "won" in Alabama because he couldn't lose.

Both Moore and Strange campaigned as stalwart Trump supporters. If Moore had been an opponent of the president, then MSNBC would have been right.

Steve Bannon and Breitbart did not win the election for Roy Moore just like they did not win the presidential election for Donald Trump.

Long before Bannon showed up, Moore had been a folk hero in Alabama. Polls always had Moore leading the race.

While Bannon and Breitbart are an influential voice on the right, they are just that, a voice representing a fraction of the conservative movement.

In the past several years Breitbart has intervened to primary and try to kick out many Republican senators, such as John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins, among others.

Newsmax has given editorial support to these candidates and others, and those candidates have always prevailed.

I long ago subscribed to President Reagan's dictum that a Republican who supports you most of the time is better than a Democrat who opposes you all the time.

Yesterday Bannon said this election was a referendum on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. I have always been perplexed by the Breitbart attacks on McConnell.

Any review of his record would show McConnell is one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

I watched McConnell closely during the Obama years. McConnell was "the bulwark" that stopped Obama pushing through his radical agenda.

Arguably, Donald Trump's most significant legislative achievement has been his appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. McConnell engineered that victory.

But let's get back to Donald Trump.

Trump also won in Alabama by showing Republicans in Congress that he is not only loyal, but he will fight for those who support him.

Sen. Strange has been strong and consistent for the president.

Donald Trump is politically shrewd. He saw Moore's poll numbers, he knew it was an uphill battle from the beginning.

Trump likes battles. And that's another reason he won — Americans love a fighter.