Former President Trump on Wednesday endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks’s (R-Ala.) nascent Senate bid in Alabama, giving one of his staunchest allies a crucial boost in the race to replace retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). 

“Mo Brooks is pro-life, loves our Military and our Vets, will protect our Second Amendment, combat the Biden open borders agenda, is fighting for voter integrity (like few others), and was the Co-Chair of our winning, and record setting, Alabama campaign in 2020,” Trump said in a statement through his leadership PAC, Save America.  

“Mo Brooks has my Complete and Total Endorsement for the U.S. Senate representing the Great State of Alabama,” he continued. “He will never let you down!”

Even more than two months after leaving office, Trump remains the most influential Republican in the country, and that rings especially true in Alabama, a state that handed him over 20-point victories in both 2016 and 2020. 

His endorsement of Brooks is almost certain to make the Alabama congressman the favorite for the GOP Senate nomination. It also delivers a blow to the campaign of Lynda Blanchard, Trump’s former ambassador to Slovenia, who is also seeking the Republican nod in Alabama.

Shelby, who first won his Senate seat in 1986 as a conservative Democrat before joining the GOP in the 1990s, announced in February that he would retire after his term expires in January 2023. Despite the open seat, the Senate race is not expected to be competitive for Democrats. 

Brooks launched his Senate campaign in late March with the support of Stephen Miller, the former Trump White House adviser who remains a powerful figure in the former president’s orbit.

Miller introduced Brooks at his campaign announcement rally last month, casting Republicans’ support for the congressman as critical for maintaining Trump’s influence over the GOP. 

“The America First movement is counting on you,” Miller said. “If you truly want to put America first, last always ... then you need to get your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, everyone you can find, to vote for Mo Brooks.”

Brooks was one of Trump’s biggest boosters in Congress throughout the former president’s tenure in the White House. He spoke at the now-infamous “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington in January that preceded the riot at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump’s supporters.

During that speech, Brooks urged a crowd of the president’s supporters to “start taking down names and kicking ass.” He told the crowd to carry that message with him and “along the way stop at the Capitol.” Brooks has denied that he had encouraged anyone to engage in violence.