Katie Britt leveraged her Alabama connections and political savvy to trounce Mo Brooks.

At a gathering of Alabama Republicans final yr, Katie Britt and her husband strategically positioned themselves on the finish of a receiving line to shake palms with former President Donald J. Trump.

Ms. Britt, a lawyer and former chief of workers for Senator Richard Shelby, had lately introduced her marketing campaign to fill the seat being vacated by her former boss, who’s retiring. Mr. Trump had already endorsed her opponent, Representative Mo Brooks — however the couple hoped to sow some doubt in Mr. Trump’s thoughts, in accordance to 4 folks accustomed to the encounter.

As the couple greeted Mr. Trump, Ms. Britt’s husband, Wesley Britt — a burly retired N.F.L. lineman — talked about to the previous president that he had as soon as performed for the New England Patriots. “The only time you’ve met me, I think I was wrapped in a towel in the Patriots locker room,” Mr. Britt was stated to have informed Mr. Trump, who discovered it hilarious and replied that Robert K. Kraft, the crew’s billionaire proprietor, “likes me very much.”

From then on, Ms. Britt positioned herself as a formidable competitor with savvy political abilities who persistently tried to persuade Mr. Trump that she deserved his endorsement as a substitute.

In March, Mr. Trump gave Ms. Britt half of what she needed, withdrawing his endorsement of Mr. Brooks — at that time far behind within the polls — as a result of, he stated, the far-right congressman had gone “woke.” Then, this month, with Ms. Britt clearly on observe to prevail, the previous president backed her, seemingly in an try to pad his endorsement document.

Ten months after her transient trade with Mr. Trump final August, Ms. Britt claimed victory within the Republican major runoff for Alabama’s open Senate seat on Tuesday, capping a hard-fought marketing campaign for her celebration’s nomination in opposition to Mr. Brooks. In a state with a deep-seated conservative bent, she is all however assured of profitable within the basic election in November.

Ms. Britt can also be one step nearer to making historical past as the primary girl in Alabama to be elected to the Senate. Her Democratic opponent is a pastor, Will Boyd, who has made unsuccessful runs for Senate, House and lieutenant governor.

Shortly after the polls closed Tuesday, Mr. Shelby, who has recognized Ms. Britt because the days when she was an intern in his workplace, stated he was overjoyed for her.

“She is an outstanding person — she has got the brains, the drive and the compassion,” he stated.

Ms. Britt, 40, is seen as a part of a youthful technology of pro-Trump Republicans, and her husband’s banter with Mr. Trump was seen by these accustomed to the encounter as an astute transfer that proved important to her nomination.

Ms. Britt entered the first with little title recognition and lengthy odds in opposition to Mr. Brooks, who boasted greater than a decade of expertise within the House and gained Mr. Trump’s backing after he riled up the group on the former president’s rally earlier than the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But Mr. Trump rescinded his help for Mr. Brooks in March as Mr. Brooks struggled to achieve traction underneath an avalanche of attack ads and criticism of his choice to urge an viewers at a Trump rally to go away the 2020 election behind. “Katie Britt, on the other hand, is a fearless America First Warrior,” Mr. Trump stated in an announcement this month as he endorsed Ms. Britt.

That transfer didn’t utterly wipe out Mr. Brooks, who nonetheless managed to clinch a second-place end in Alabama’s May 24 major, garnering 29 percent of the vote. Ms. Britt pulled in 45 p.c, in need of the bulk that will have averted a runoff between the 2 high vote-getters.

Ms. Britt common herself as an “Alabama First” candidate, enjoying off Mr. Trump’s “America First” presidential marketing campaign slogan, and centered her run on her Christian religion, hard-line border enforcement insurance policies and ties to the enterprise neighborhood.

As an aide for Mr. Shelby, one of many Senate’s most senior members, she labored on a few of his signature points, together with a sweeping Republican bundle of tax cuts in 2017, affirmation of conservative judges and a push for a border wall alongside the U.S.-Mexico border.

She most lately served as the pinnacle of the Business Council of Alabama, a robust lobbying group, and led a “Keep Alabama Open” marketing campaign in November 2020 in opposition to coronavirus pandemic restrictions that required nonessential companies to shut or restrict companies. She additionally opened the council’s sources, sometimes reserved to paying members, to all small companies amid the well being disaster.

On coverage, Ms. Britt and Mr. Brooks had ideological variations: He represented a extra aggressive model of arch conservatism as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus whereas Ms. Britt, like Mr. Shelby, was seen as extra targeted on financial improvement. But in oratorical fashion, she echoed the hard-right speaking factors which have turn out to be commonplace messaging within the Republican Party.

“When I look at what’s happening in Washington, I don’t recognize our country,” Ms. Britt stated in a video introducing herself to voters. “The leftists are attacking our religious freedoms and advancing a socialist agenda. In Joe Biden’s America, people can collect more money staying at home than they can earn on the job.”

The campaigns and supporters of Ms. Britt, Mr. Brooks and a 3rd high competitor within the race, Mike Durant, a former Army pilot, spent tens of millions of {dollars} on destructive adverts.

Mr. Brooks and his supporters tried to paint Ms. Britt as a lobbyist and a RINO — a popular insult utilized by Trump supporters for politicians they consider are Republicans in title solely.

She shot again with assaults portraying Mr. Brooks as a profession politician. It additionally helped that Mr. Brooks had a poor exhibiting at Mr. Trump’s Alabama rally final August, simply after Ms. Britt started her quiet marketing campaign to sway the previous president to her trigger. What began as an enthusiastic response for Mr. Brooks that night time turned to boos when he urged these within the viewers to put the 2020 presidential election behind them and give attention to 2022 and 2024.

Mr. Trump referred to as him again onstage for a second look, calling him “a fearless warrior for your sacred right to vote.”

Later, when the previous president took again his endorsement of Mr. Brooks, he stated the congressman had made a “horrible mistake” together with his feedback at that fateful rally.