I too think that Sessions ran for his seat for two of the reasons you laid out.
“1) the long shot possibility that MAGA’s would elect him to replace a weaker, lesser candidate in the Senate and/or 2) the platform from which to tell the public why he recused regardless of whether or not he won the election.”
I think also that Sessions genuinely thought his leading Republican opponent would not support Trump as much as he would and he also thought he could positively influence his fellow Republican senators to support the MAGA agenda and to see that the DS is only going to stab them in the back in the end.
By running, Sessions put Trump in a bind. I think the Trump team was afraid that Alabamans would not forgive Sessions and not come out to vote for his and a Republican pick up of the Senate seat would not occur and that the Demonrats would kick up their fraud operation in order to prevent Sessions from getting in.
Also, given Trump’s public spats with Sessions, Trump would lose credibility if he supported him. It was far easier to support a candidate he had not really ever had any interactions with.
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Your post helps clarify a lot. It seemed so odd at the time because Sessions actual situation (forced to recuse) was never acknowledged by Trump so he went into his Senate run with ....everyone...against him.
Your post makes me wonder if Sessions was correct that the leading republican opponent would not support MAGA. It’s possible Sessions thought him compromised,weak, or anti-Trump and ran to either force a weak candidate to align with Trump or Tuberville realized he could lose and only pretended to be MAGA.
It would have cost President Trump some votes if he supported Sessions but perhaps he would have taken that risk to get a patriot in the Senate if Sessions opponent were bad enough, but once Tuberville went (or appeared to go) full MAGA then risking that loss of votes was no longer feasible/ideal etc.
Also, Sessions might have wanted to head up or at least get on the Judiciary Committee and other relevant committees because he above all other senators would know what needs to be investigated and what documents to subpoena.
He knows where the bodies are buried.
He and Trump could have disagreed on strategy.
Whereas Trump might not have liked or agreed with his recusal and Sessions was trying to sort of undo that recusal by getting in the Senate to get on committees and help from that angle, Trump might have thought it was a bad “look” if he was calling investigative shots from within the Senate.
Perhaps Sessions could have inadvertently compromised a military intelligence investigation by being too smart about what documents to subpoena.