Democrat Doug Jones has pulled off a major upset in
Alabama by defeating Republican Roy Moore in Tuesday’s special
election, becoming the first Democrat to win election to the Senate from
the deeply conservative state in 25 years.
"We have come so far and the people of Alabama have spoken," Jones said during a victory speech in Birmingham late Tuesday.
But in a late-night speech to supporters, Moore refused
to concede. Moore told the crowd that when the “vote is this close…it’s
not over.”
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Jones had 49.9 percent to Moore's 48.4 percent.
Moore said the campaign was looking into the state's
"recount provision." Under Alabama law, a mandatory recount takes place
if a candidate wins by a half percent or less.
“We also know that God is always in control,” he said.
Bill Armistead, his campaign chairman, floated a possible recount late Tuesday.
Other Republicans, though, already accepted the
outcome. In a tweet, President Trump congratulated Jones on his “hard
fought victory.”
“The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win
is a win,” Trump said. “The people of Alabama are great, and the
Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period
of time. It never ends!”
A Democrat winning the special election for the seat to
replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions was seen as just a remote
possibility several months ago.
Doug Jones, an attorney best known for prosecuting two
members of the KKK for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, initially wasn’t believed to have a realistic
chance of winning the seat. Alabama hasn’t elected a Democrat to the
Senate in 25 years.
(AP)
But Jones, a Birmingham attorney famous for prosecuting
the KKK, caught a break after Moore was overwhelmed in recent weeks
with multiple allegations of past sexual misconduct. Moore denied the
accusations throughout the race.
Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme
Court, has faced multiple allegations he pursued romantic relationships
with teenage girls while he was in his thirties -- accusations that have
dramatically shaken up the race. He has denied the claims.
The Fox News Voter Analysis, a new polling technique
Fox News is testing to improve coverage, indicated 51 percent of voters
on Tuesday believed the accusations against Moore.
The analysis also showed that 59 percent of voters
thought Jones has strong moral character, while 57 percent said Moore
doesn’t.
The dramatic Democratic win cuts the GOP’s Senate
majority from 52 to 51, further dimming Republican hopes of enacting
major legislation backed by President Trump. Jones likely won't be
seated in Congress until January.
Because he is filling the rest of Sessions' term, Jones
will not serve a full six year Senate term. The seat will be up for
re-election again in 2020.
Roy Moore, a favorite of religious conservative voters
with a long, colorful political history that has both fueled and
complicated his rise in Alabama.
(AP)
Earlier in the day, Trump, who endorsed Moore even as
other top Republicans in Washington called on the nominee to drop out of
the race, on Tuesday reiterated his support by arguing Moore would vote
for his agenda in Congress.
“The people of Alabama will do the right thing... Roy Moore will always vote with us,” the president tweeted.
Trump painted Jones as a liberal “puppet” of Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
“Doug Jones is Pro-Abortion, weak on Crime, Military
and Illegal Immigration, Bad for Gun Owners and Veterans and against the
WALL,” Trump tweeted.
Trump won 62 percent of Alabama’s vote in the 2016 presidential race.
Most of the attention in the race, though, centered on
Moore. A favorite of religious conservative voters, he has a colorful
political history that has both fueled and complicated his rise in
Alabama.
He first got national attention in the 1990s as a
county judge when he hung a wooden Ten Commandments plaque on the wall
of his courtroom.
Benefiting from his popularity after the episode, Moore
then ran and won a race for chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court
in 2000. But he was ousted after refusing to remove a 5,280-pound
granite Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state judicial
building.
He resurrected his political career in 2012, getting
elected chief justice again. But his tenure was short-lived once more:
In 2016, Moore was suspended as chief justice after he directed probate
judges not to issue marriage certificates to gay couples.
After Sessions’ resignation, Luther Strange, the
state’s former attorney general, was temporarily appointed to the seat
in April before a special election could take place. Strange was
appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley, who later resigned in the cloud
of a scandal.
Despite being endorsed by Trump and enjoying the
support of a well-funded super PAC connected to Senate majority leader
Mitch McConnell, Strange went on to lose a runoff to Moore in September.
Last month, though, Moore was hit with multiple
allegations that he initiated sexual encounters with teenagers when he
was a young attorney in the 1970s.
McConnell called on Moore to drop out of the race and
explored options for either removing Moore from the ballot or backing a
write-in alternative. He also suggested Moore would face a Senate Ethics
Committee investigation had he won.
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, the chairman of the
National Republican Senatorial Committee, had said the Senate could take
the extraordinary step of voting to remove Moore if he had won.
Alabama’s senior Republican senator, Richard Shelby,
said he didn’t vote for Moore and instead wrote in the name of another
Republican.
Moore, though, never backed down amid the accusations,
holding multiple rallies with Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon, in
recent weeks.
“I’m not talking about the accusers today,” Moore said
after arriving at his polling location in Gallant, Alabama, on Tuesday.
“I’m talking about this race... the people will answer the allegations
this evening with the vote.”