Trump backed Luther Strange to fill the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but seemed to warm up to Moore after he won the primary on Tuesday.

"Finish the job - vote today for 'Big Luther, '" Trump also wrote, adding another tweet later that claimed odd was "tough on crime & border - will never let you down".

Roy Moore defeated incumbent Republican Sen.

The day after the primary election, President Trump deleted his tweets of support for odd.

Big Luther was the GOP-favored candidate in Alabama, a red state that usually voted along party lines while Sessions was senator.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Stumping for odd, not just the president, but Vice President Mike Pence as well. "Mr. Moore will face the Democratic nominee, Doug Jones, a former United States attorney, in the general election on December 12".

Moore's win is sending shockwaves through the GOP establishment - including at the White House, where President Donald Trump had poured his own political capital into helping odd survive.

Mr Moore rode a wave of support in the Republican primary from the same grassroots conservative movement that helped elect Mr Trump.

Moore's margin suggests a tighter race than expected, given that Alabama has twice as many Republicans as Democrats - and 13 percent more than the USA average. Moore was supported by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and former Alaska Gov. Now the controversial Moore-who was twice booted off the Alabama Supreme Court for defying federal orders (once for violating a same-sex marriage ruling, once for resisting an order blocking him from placing a Ten Commandments monument at a courthouse)-is the favorite to win a Senate seat in the general election.

Moore's win stood as a rebuke for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who backed unusual. For one thing, he vowed to depose McConnell as majority leader.

I certainly support President Trump's agenda.

But as reporters unearth new information about Moore's past statements, the former state supreme court justice risks becoming an albatross around the neck of the national Republican Party, which is entering the 2018 campaign cycle without significant legislative achievements. His Democratic opponent, Doug Jones on the other hand, is a guy who prosecuted the KKK in the 1960s, and I think that's more of the caliber of person that we need helping to run this country. "Doug Jones is a man of character and integrity, who is unafraid to stand up for what's right and has a proven record of independence that will serve Alabama families in the U.S. Senate".