My blindly repeating what I heard a radio talking head say. Yes the term is up Jan 2021, and starts when sworn in sometime in January, so two years, not 18 months. Apologies. A 24 month, not an 18 month placehold.
Well I never expected to wake up to good news. I figured in the end Moore would win by a 5% margin. What happened?
Three years, you mean. 
48% of voting Alabamians voted that way. The interesting question would be what percentage stayed home.
Then stopping payment on it when Moore lost again.
That skinflint didn’t pay for his own wedding caterer, he isn’t going to throw money on a lost cause.
Last night Alabama lived up to its state motto: “Not As Dumb As Mississippi”.
That’s a little misleading. Jones won’t be seated before the end of the session because the session goes into recess on Dec 22, and Alabama can’t certify the results until after that date. Once the Senate returns on Jan 3, the results will have been certified, and he’ll be seated. So McConnell can’t just extend the session to keep him out - once the results are certified, he has to seat Jones (or provoke a constitutional crisis).
Alabama is still likely to go R next election - this was more like the Democratic party’s Scott Brown moment. But it portends major problems for the Republican party in other states. It’s a problem in the Rust Belt that Trump won and where the GOP has quietly been turning some legislatures red over the past 10-20 years (PA in WI, for instance), and last night’s results along with November’s could be a sign of a reversal coming. Not only that, but I would also keep an eye on Georgia and Arizona - two states that have been solidly red but because of demographic trends could be close to flipping in another few years.
I think the real impact is that it now creates a major dilemma for the GOP, and one that could possibly lead to a civil war. Does the GOP finally now have the evidence it needs to fight Bannon’s extremist wing of the party and other extremists like the Freedom Caucus? Does it challenge them? Or does it continue to live in fear of losing their votes and support? McConnell seemed to answer that question in his statement last night, but the reality is that the GOP has made these nutters and their voters a major part of their platform. They can’t just dump them now without consequence.
According to NPR, Moore refused to concede, saying he’d “wait on God and let the process play out.” God’s response was apparently “Drop dead, Roy.”
Doing a little happy dance over here myself!
As with the Trump win, I’m thinking folk are unwilling to truly express their conscience to pollsters.
But suppose there is a recount (I assume they can get someone to pay for it) and it drags out, drags out, there are lawsuits over voter fraud, and then whoever is supposed to certify elections drags his feet. For months. What happens then?
If only that was true. I’m imagining him being dragged into the fold and standing before God, being told, “When I said ‘Love your neighbor’ I didn’t mean…”
Well then I guess Jones isn’t seated, but why would that happen? I doubt Kay Ivey or much of Alabama’s government really gives enough of a shit about Roy Moore to let him screw around with the democratic process. If he was popular enough for that he wouldn’t have lost the election in the first place.
There is no legal mandate for a recount, and Moore will slink away.
The RNC wouldn’t fund Moore’s campaign. Why would they, or anyone, fund his recount?
Certainly McConnell would like to avoid having another Dem in the Senate before the tax bill comes back, but it’s not at all clear he has the power to make a slow Franken-style challenge and recount happen.
The black vote.
Seriously - it looks like a massive turnout of black voters in Alabama.
Also, low turnout in the rural areas - maybe white folks who couldn’t stomach a pedophile in office also couldn’t handle voting democratic and just elected not to vote at all.
This is, unfortunately, very likely.
That said, the Alabama Secretary of State seems unusually rational and forthright about the situation. He supported Moore in the election (albeit with what I would call tepid language), but he’s not being partisan about the results.
Interesting breakdown. Large Black turn out helped elect Jones but also age played a big role in this election. From CNN
Black women make up maybe 13% of Alabama citizens, but they made up 17% of Alabama voters in the recent election.
Black men by comparison make up 13% of Alabama citizens, but only 11% of Alabama voters.
Is the issue that black men are more likely to have felony records and are not allowed to vote in states like Alabama, or is it that black men aren’t as motivated as black women, or something else?
By comparison, 35% of the electorate was white men vs 31% for white women. Normally women vote more than men, but among white people the genders were reversed. I guess a lot of it was just white women staying home since they didn’t want to vote for either.
The higher black turnout combined with blacks offering the democrat 96% of their vote (as opposed to the ~90% they usually give the democrats) is what pushed this election. That and Moore being such a shitty candidate that a lot of people stayed home who’d normally vote for him, or people who’d normally stayed home came out to vote against him.
Trump called the prosecutor of the Birmingham church bombing “soft on crime.”