# Can the Democrats win the Alabama senate special election in December? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 13, 2017, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504 "2017-08-13T00:49:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 58
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1141 "2017-12-13T02:06:48Z")
I wonder who Sam Wang picked… ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1142 "2017-12-13T02:08:59Z")
I feel sick ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1143 "2017-12-13T02:11:49Z")
I’m less hopeful than I was - I thought it was about fifty fifty, now I think Moore is a slight favorite. But this has changed quite rapidly in both directions as votes come in, so it’s still much too early to be confident either way. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1144 "2017-12-13T02:14:06Z")
As this race gets closer to it’s end, it’ll be interesting to think about the aftermath. Some debate about whether Moore is better for the GOP, or perhaps a curse. If Moore loses, that puts a dent in Bannon and gives McConnell’s establishment wing a boost. But even so, Trump will have every incentive to be Trump. It could conceivably turn into a GOP civil war sooner rather than later. If Moore wins, that emboldens Trump and Bannon, and it forces the rest of the party to become more in alignment with the extremism and authoritarianism we’ve seen lately. They might end up doing away with the filibuster as well. Mind you, all of this risks making an increasingly unpopular party even less popular with swing voters, but the GOP will push forward regardless of what anyone but party insiders and loyal voters think. I keep hearing that Democrats wouldn’t mind a Moore victory with the expectation that he will expose the GOP. But the GOP is exposed on a daily basis - I don’t see how Moore makes the party look worse. He might actually make Trump look better, almost human at times. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1145 "2017-12-13T02:14:37Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Interesting they have “best estimate” of Jones winning by .1%. 😉 wonder how good the exit polling analysis they have is. Times just jumped to 67% Jones with 30% reporting. Hope is growing again. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1146 "2017-12-13T02:15:45Z")
Eh, what do I know. NYT has shifted dramatically towards Jones in the last few minutes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1147 "2017-12-13T02:17:22Z")
Right now on the NY Times, only 1 of 190 precincts in Mobile have been counted. Jones’ is ahead in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville and Montgomery so if Mobile comes in…going to depend who got the votes out. ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1148 "2017-12-13T02:17:44Z")
It’ll be close, one way or another. And if Jones wins, look forward to Moore claiming the vote was rigged. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1149 "2017-12-13T02:26:04Z")
The number of write-ins for this race surprises me (1.5%). I figured that it was so polarized that there’d only be a handful. ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1150 "2017-12-13T02:26:37Z")
The [538 feed is](http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/alabama-senate-election-results/) mentioning that turnout amongst Republicans is down - for example: > [@](#): > > Harry Enten 9:23 PM > Following up on that Nate Cohn tweet we posted below: I want to point out that Fayette County is all in. Moore won it by 50 points — well ahead of his benchmark there. Here’s the twist, though: There were less than 5,000 votes cast there. In 2014, there were nearly 7,000 votes cast there. In other words, turnout is way down from 2014 in a heavy pro-Moore area. > Twitter 9:23 PM > Folks, our model thinks that the GOP may have a big turnout problem. > The three, white, GOP counties have fallen far short of our turnout estimates–including two under 75% of our estimates. > That’s what the big swing in our estimate is about. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1151 "2017-12-13T02:28:19Z")
NYT just jumped to 90% Jones. (Yes I am checking every few seconds) ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1152 "2017-12-13T02:29:35Z")
Heh. On my two screens, I’ve got 538, the Dope, the Politico results, and the NYT Live estimates open. Oh, and my twitter feed. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1153 "2017-12-13T02:32:54Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > NYT just jumped to 90% Jones. > (Yes I am checking every few seconds) After 2016, I can only handle bad news. Please… stop this. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1154 "2017-12-13T02:37:06Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > NYT just jumped to 90% Jones. > (Yes I am checking every few seconds) I don’t see that on their front page or the main article. Where is it? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1155 "2017-12-13T02:37:43Z")
[Here](https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/alabama-senate-special-election-roy-moore-doug-jones), and it’s back to 66% Jones. I keep trying to drag the pointer back up to the 90% range, but the plug-in isn’t working. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1156 "2017-12-13T02:39:31Z")
62% of precincts reporting and Moore has 50k more votes. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1157 "2017-12-13T02:40:20Z")
Nate Silver on the NYTimes’s dial: > [@Nate Silver](#): > > The Upshot’s model shows good news for Jones, but it has also been swinging around a fair bit. A few minutes ago, they had him with a 90 percent chance of winning, but that probability is now back down to 67 percent. > > I really admire what the Upshot folks are trying to do, but it’s also worth noting that building a live-updating model based on partial returns is a really hard problem. Among other things, its hard to calibrate your estimates of uncertainty based on empirical data, because (to put this in a nontechnical way) every state and every election is different. So I’d keep a watchful eye on the Upshot’s dials to get an overall sense of how things are trending, but I wouldn’t take the probabilities too literally, at least until later in the night. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1158 "2017-12-13T02:42:29Z")
Predictit has Jones at 70 cents currently. ETA: And now 65. Ugh! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1159 "2017-12-13T02:43:32Z")
This is totally nuts. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I still have hope for Jones. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504/1160 "2017-12-13T02:52:54Z")
Looking at the NYT totals, the large majority of the smaller, rural counties are complete, which is where much of Moore’s support is. A lot of the remaining vote is from Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, urban areas where Jones is running well. NYT shows 69% chance for Jones at this moment, but it’s flip-flopped so much… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504.md?page=57) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-democrats-win-the-alabama-senate-special-election-in-december/793504.md?page=59)