Scott Olson/Getty Images(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) — Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore defeated Sen. Luther Strange in Alabama’s Republican senate primary runoff election Tuesday, delivering a blow to President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who backed the incumbent legislator.

Following his win, Moore tweeted, “CONSERVATIVE VICTORY HAS COME TO #ALSEN! Because of you, tonight, the establishment has been DEFEATED in Alabama! THANK YOU!”

CONSERVATIVE VICTORY HAS COME TO #ALSEN!

Because of you, tonight, the establishment has been DEFEATED in Alabama!

THANK YOU!

— Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) September 27, 2017

And in a statement in which he conceded to Moore, Strange said, “From the beginning of this campaign, my priority has been serving the people of Alabama. Tomorrow I will go back to work with President Trump and do all I can to advance his agenda over the next few weeks … I am especially grateful for the support of President Trump and Vice President Pence, as well as the strong example set by my friends Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. I congratulate Roy Moore on the result this evening. May God be with him and may God continue to bless Alabama and the United States of America.”

Moore advances to face Democratic nominee and former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones in the general election contest on December 12.

The special election gained national prominence because of what was at stake: the political sway of President Donald Trump’s administration versus the base that helped him win the White House.

Trump made a personal investment in the Strange campaign, holding a rally for the senator — who was appointed in February to the seat formerly held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions — last week in Huntsville, where he admitted he “might have made a mistake” in backing the incumbent senator and pledged to back Moore should he win.

Strange, also had the backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the Senate Leadership Fund pumped $7 million into the race. In the past week Trump and Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Alabama to stump with Strange.

Moore, on the other hand, is a well-known but controversial figure in the state, who was twice removed as a jurist from the Alabama Supreme Court. In 2003, he defied an order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a state courthouse, and in 2016 he ordered state probate judges not to issue same sex-marriage licenses, in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.

The former judge received the support for former White House aides Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, actor Chuck Norris, and Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.

At a Moore campaign rally Monday night, Bannon paraphrased William Shakespeare’s funeral oration by Mark Antony for Julius Caesar, saying, “We did not come here to defy Donald Trump. We came here to praise and honor him.”

Sessions held the Senate seat for 20 years before he joined the Trump administration as attorney general.

In February, Alabama’s then-Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Strange, the state’s attorney general at the time, to fill the Senate seat until the next general election, in 2018. After Bentley’s resignation because of a political scandal, then–Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey became governor and in April called for a special election.

Strange has been dogged by accusations that he accepted a quid pro quo arrangement, because he asked state lawmakers in November to suspend their impeachment investigation into Bentley so that his office could conduct “related work.”

Known as “Big Luther” — at 6 foot 9, he is the tallest senator in U.S. history — he has also faced attacks for his work as a lobbyist for Sonat Offshore, an influential gas utility, and as a corporate lawyer in Birmingham.

Before Moore ran for Senate, he was a controversial figure, displaying a wooden carving of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom in the 1990s when he served as a circuit court judge. After he was elected Alabama’s chief justice, Moore refused to remove a marble monument of the Ten Commandments that he installed outside the state Supreme Court in 2001, leading to his removal from office in 2003.

He was re-elected chief justice in November 2012 but was suspended in May 2016 after ordering state probate judges to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. He resigned in April of this year.

The first primary election was on Aug. 15. None of the nine Republican candidates garnered over 50 percent of the vote, triggering a runoff.

Moore and Strange were the two top candidates; Moore won 38.9 percent of the vote, and Strange garnered 32.8 percent.

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