Alabama Congressman Barry Moore got a boost in his run for the U.S. Senate on Saturday night with an endorsement from President Trump.
The president’s choice of Moore out of a crowded field of Republican candidates is a reward for a more than 10-year alliance with the veteran and businessman who rose through the state legislature to Congress.
Moore spoke at Trump’s campaign rally in Mobile in August 2015, when Moore was a member of the Alabama House.
Trump was getting plenty of media attention at the time but was still considered a longshot for president in a field crowded with establishment politicians.
“People say that was the Trump train,” Moore said in a 2018 interview. “When I got on board it was like a little engine leaving the station and he was one of 17 candidates.”
Moore said he was the first public official to endorse Trump, which Trump mentioned in his endorsement Saturday night.
Trump called Moore “an America First Patriot who has been with me from the very beginning.”
When Moore announced his run for Senate back in August, he talked about Trump again.
“I’m running for U.S. Senate because the people of Alabama deserve a Trump conservative and a working man who will defend their freedoms,” Moore said.
“I will have his back and defend the MAGA agenda in the Senate, just like I have as a member of the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives,” Moore said.
On Saturday, as Trump endorsed Moore, the powerful conservative group Club For Growth offered its support to his campaign just as it had in his 2020 race.
“Rep. Barry Moore is a battle-tested conservative champion who has fought tirelessly for Alabamians on Capitol Hill,” said Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh.
Moore, 59, is from Enterprise, the same hometown as Sen. Katie Britt.
“Barry grew up on a farm in Coffee County, where he learned to judge a man by his character and his work ethic,” his campaign website states.
He graduated from Enterprise High School in 1984, got a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science from Auburn in 1992, and served in the Alabama Army National Guard, according to his official bio.
Moore started BMI, Inc., an excavation, waste disposal, and demolition business in Enterprise. He and his wife Heather have four children and two grandchildren.
He was elected to the Alabama House in 2010, part of the Republican wave that year that gave the GOP control of the Alabama Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.
Moore defeated state Rep. Terry Spicer, a Democrat first elected to the office in 1998.
Moore was reelected in 2014.
In 2018, he ran for Congress in the 2nd Congressional District, challenging incumbent Martha Roby.
Roby had withdrawn her support for Trump in the 2016 election after the Access Hollywood video that showed Trump making crude comments about groping women.
Moore said Roby’s stance was not popular in south Alabama.
“I had so many people that were just disgusted in my district,” Moore said in 2018. “Military guys out at Fort Rucker just were furious because the only other option at that time was Hillary (Clinton).”
Moore lost that 2018 race. But he won the Congressional seat in 2020 after Roby decided not to seek a sixth term.
Voters reelected Moore to Congress in 2022.
In 2023, a federal court redrew Alabama’s congressional map after ruling that it likely violated the Voting Rights Act.
The 2nd District was changed to favor Democratic candidates. Enterprise, Moore’s hometown, was moved into the 1st District.
Moore ran in the 1st district in 2024 and defeated the Republican incumbent, U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl of Mobile. Freedom Caucus founder, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, campaigned for Moore in that race.
During his time in the state Legislature, Moore survived a battle that threatened not only his political career but his freedom.
A grand jury indicted him for perjury in 2014 during the investigation that would later lead to felony ethics convictions against Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard.
Moore denied wrongdoing, took the stand in his own defense, and was found not guilty by a Lee County jury.
He won the 2014 primary by 10 percentage points while the indictment was pending.
“My community knew me, they knew our family and they didn’t waver,” he said in a 2018 interview.
Moore said the experience severely tested him and his family and deepened their faith.
“That prepared us for something,” Moore said when talking about his decision to run for Congress in 2018.
“I don’t know what God had in mind, and it might not have anything to do with Congress. But it prepared us to be willing to be obedient,” he said.
After Trump’s endorsement, Moore posted that he is “truly honored and thankful to receive the endorsement of President Donald Trump.”
“With his support, I’m ready to get to work on day one. I’ll continue fighting for Alabama values, secure borders, a strong economy, and putting the President’s America First agenda into action.”
