Doug Jones, the Democrat candidate for the senate race from Alabama, won the closely fought contest with Republican Roy Moore on December 12, causing a major political upset and a decisive blow to President Donald J. Trump. Alabama, one of the solidly Republican states in the deep south, last elected a Democrat, a quarter of a century ago. The state is such a Republican stronghold that Richard Shelby, who won in 1992 as a Democrat, eventually had to shift his allegiance to the Republican Party.
The special election to the senate had to be conducted after incumbent junior senator Jeff Sessions quit his seat to join the Trump administration as attorney general. The Republican establishment had initially supported Luther Strange, former attorney general of Alabama, who was appointed to temporarily stand in as senator. Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, however, ran an insurgent campaign, reminiscent of Trump's own presidential campaign, and won the primaries against Strange, aided in no small measure by Steve Bannon, former White House strategist. The move was widely considered as a part of Bannon's attempts to recast the Republican Party in a far right image. And, Moore fit the bill perfectly.
As chief justice of Alabama, he had installed the ten commandments in the courthouse, asked state judges to disregard the Supreme Court order legalising same sex marriages, compared Quran to Mein Kampf, demanded Muslims should not be allowed to serve in the Congress and had once even said that the last time the US was great, slavery was legal.
During the senate campaign, several women raised complaints against Moore for sexual misconduct when they were minors. Such allegations and Moore's track record of extreme views made him hugely unpopular among mainstream Republicans, who chose not to support him. Shelby refused to endorse him and former Minnesota Republican senator Norm Coleman tweeted that the loss of Moore and Bannon was a big plus for the Republican party. “Moore would have buried the GOP in 2018,” tweeted Coleman.
Jones tamed a deep red state riding on the strength of an unlikely coalition comprising moderate Republicans, liberal white voters and African Americans. He won overwhelming support from major cities like Mobile and Montgomery, and received near unanimous support from all the Afro-American strongholds. His history as a prosecutor, who secured the conviction of two members of the Ku Klux Klan for a 1963 dynamite attack on a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young Afro American girls lost their lives, has helped him win support of a large number of Afro-Americans.
Moore was relying on the support from middle class whites and far right groups. In the end, it was not enough for him to secure a win, in a state which the Republicans have always taken for granted. Moore's defeat is a major political setback for Trump, who had carried Alabama by a whopping 30 per cent margin in November. Despite objections from senior Republican leaders and White House aides, Trump chose to throw his full weight behind Moore and even appeared in a campaign event near Alabama. A White House source called the result an earthquake. “It is devastating for the president.” Trump, however, congratulated Jones soon after Associated Press called the election in his favour although he hinted that write-in votes – voting for a candidate whose name is not on the ballot – played a key role in his victory.
The unlikely victory of Jones is expected to create some concern among the Republicans. With the senate Republican majority now precariously placed at 51-49, it will not be easy for majority leader Mitch McConnell to manage his legislative agenda. It could possibly have an effect even on the tax reform bill and the Republican caucus is likely to finish major items on their agenda before Jones is sworn in.
The victory has added to the momentum of Democrats, who have been looking upbeat after their promising show in the November special elections. They now hope to flip the senate and give the Republicans a tight fight in the midterm polls in November 2018.
Still, the GOP could take back the Alabama seat in 2020 when Jones finishes the remainder of Sessions' term. The state is so ruby red that a decent Republican candidate can win it back from the Democrats.
