Ex-Cruz ’16 Chief Strategist: Sessions Endorsement Critical, ‘Swung a Lot of Conservatives to Trump’

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump introduces Alabama Senator Jeff Sessio
Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images
Tony Lee

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) former chief strategist for his 2016 presidential campaign said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump was incorrect to dismiss the importance of then-Sen. Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) critical endorsement during the 2016 GOP primary season.

“#POTUS is wrong. #Sessions endorsement mattered. Swung a lot of #Conservatives to #Trump,” Jason Johnson tweeted.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal about his now “beleaguered” attorney general, Trump said, “when they say he endorsed me, I went to Alabama. I had 40,000 people. He was a senator from Alabama. I won the state by a lot, massive numbers.”

“A lot of the states I won by massive numbers. But he was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, ‘What do I have to lose?’ And he endorsed me,’ Trump continued. “So it’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement.”

As Johnson, Cruz’s ex-chief strategist, pointed out, Trump’s response could not be further from the truth, as Sessions’ endorsement was monumental. Sessions was the first Senator—and just the third member of Congress—to endorse Trump at the moment when Trump needed some institutional support to help him fend off his rivals in the “SEC primary” states in addition to GOP operatives who were trying to find any way to steal the nomination from Trump. Cruz had been seeking Sessions’ endorsement, and Sessions’ endorsement was instrumental in helping Trump blunt whatever momentum Cruz may have gotten.

“That’s a biggie,” Trump said after receiving Sessions’ endorsement. “He’s never, ever done it before.”

Sessions’ endorsement also may have turned people who came to Trump’s rally to see the spectacle into Trump voters.

“Sessions’ endorsement would carry a lot of weight,” Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, had earlier said, adding that “Sessions has more credibility with Trump’s voters than Trump does.”

As Breitbart News’ Matt Boyle noted when he filed his report from Alabama, Sessions “has provided the brainpower behind the populist nationalist revolt against political elites.”

AL.com, Sessions’ home state paper, pointed out at the time that “Sessions’ endorsement of Trump’s plan and his candidacy is a stamp of approval for all those who want the U.S. to take a hardline on immigration. It also lends credibility from a policy standpoint to Trump, who has been criticized for being long on talk and short on specifics.”

“For Sessions, Trump appears to be the answer to his fight not just on immigration but against the White House’s trade policy as well,” AL.com continued. “Sessions is a strong opponent of President Barack Obama’s latest trade proposal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and he referenced that in Sunday’s Alabama speech.”

After the endorsement, Sessions said he supported Trump because he believed Trump had the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton in the general election to implement parts of the nationalist-populist agenda.

“This is an opportunity for the people to take control of their government, and that’s sort of the way I feel about this Trump thing,” Sessions said during an appearance on Breitbart News Sunday after his endorsement. “I just think that at some point in history the people need to have their voice heard, and it just might be heard this year.”

Trump realized the importance of Sessions’ endorsement as well. He taunted Cruz for not getting it and emphasized how significant it was at debates and on the stump.

“And Jeff Sessions, one of the most respected Senator in Washington, an incredible man, also endorsed me,” Trump said in a GOP presidential debate in March, the first since the critical endorsement. “And there’s nobody that knows more about the borders than Senator Jeff Sessions. I would say this. We’re all in this together. We’re going to come up with solutions. We’re going to find the answers to things.”

Nearly two weeks later, Trump reportedly said of Sessions’ endorsement, “Ted Cruz still doesn’t believe what happened. He doesn’t believe it.”

After Sessions came on board the Trump Train, Trump became more focused on illegal immigration, trade, and how American workers were impacted by government policies. As Boyle noted, Sessions “helped Trump solidify the nationalist populist ideology that formed the basis for the building of the movement of hardworking Americans nationwide who turned out to vote for Trump.”

To a lesser extent, his endorsement may have been to Trump’s working-class voters what Obama’s Iowa victory in 2008 was to black voters. When Obama won Iowa, black voters, especially in states like South Carolina, who may have doubted whether white voters would vote for a black man for president, now believed and went all-in on Obama.

Similarly, when Sessions endorsed Trump, working-class voters who for decades had been desensitized by politicians’ empty rhetoric on illegal immigration and America-first trade and economic policies started to believe that Trump was now serious about his nationalist/populist/America-first agenda. They jumped on board the Trump Train like black voters mobilized for Obama.

In that respect, Sessions’ endorsement was more important in the Rust Belt states that carried Trump to his historic win rather than in Alabama, a state that is not in play in the general election. Trump will still win Alabama by a landslide if parts of his working-class coalition stay at home in 2020. But he will lose reelection if thousands of working-class voters in the Rust Belt do the same.

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