That was a pretty big upset, and most people didn’t see it coming. Alabama is a deep red state.
But there were a lot of tail winds for Jones, and a lot of head winds for Moore. Has anyone made up a list of all of them?
For example:
The black vote was higher than average (I think 29% of the turnout, despite blacks only being 26% of Alabama citizens)
The black vote was more heavily democrat than average. Normally it is 90% democrat, it was 96% in the special election
Trump is a deeply unpopular president
The party that controls the white house tends to lose seats in congress
Because there is one party rule (presidency, house & senate all under one party), there is a stronger urge for divided power (congress one party, presidency another)
Roy Moore is a rapist and child molester (which drove away some decent voters for him, and energized decent voters on the other side)
Roy Moore is an authoritarian theocrat who violates the constitution (which drove away some decent voters for him, and energized decent voters on the other side)
This was a special election (which means that it was a question of turnout and energy, since turnout and energy is low in special elections)
Anything else? I’m glad Jones won, but I’m not expecting re-election in 2020.
If you look at the history, it’s not so much of a mystery. Republicans typically win by big margins in AL, but Moore won his last election with only about 51% of the vote. It didn’t take much of a swing from that to flip it over to the Democrats, and Moore had some doozies. Plus, the other R Senator gave folks a reason to to vote for him.
And no one has accused Moore of rape, btw. Not sure why people keep posting here that he has been.
For a normal Senate election, the Republican would win by 28 or 29 points. But these aren’t normal times:
[ul]
[li]Subtract 10 points because of the national political environment.[/li][li]Subtract 10 points because of Moore’s problems other than his alleged assault of girls.[/li][li]Lose 10 points due to swings and changes in voter turnout because of the Moore scandal.[/li][/ul] Jones needed all 3. He got them, courtesy of Steve Bannon and Moore’s other enablers.
FTR: Link to article about Moore’s accuser, who alleged that he sexually assaulted her when she was 16. As it happens, she had voted for Trump. She said she feared that she would be raped by him when he attempted to pull off her shirt. Woman Says Roy Moore Sexually Assaulted Her When She Was 16
And a theocrat and a homophobe and a religious bigot too. The man has no redeeming qualities of any sort. He probably likes his steak well done and listens to both kinds of music too.
Yes, Moore had significant issues as a candidate. God knows that’s true.
But one of the reasons is the tailwinds that R candidates are currently facing. With a deeply unpopular Trump - and the fact that off-year elections tend to go against the President’s part - it would be expected that any D candidate who doesn’t step on his own dick would outperform the baseline.
In addition, the R party is unpopular. They’ve accomplished little and what they have is controversial. The generic Congressional survey stand near D+10. So add another 10 points to most D candidates during these elections. That should be enough - should it stand up - to flip the house next year.
No, it isn’t. The Democratic Party put much more money into the race, over $1 million, than they typically would have in the past. Many other PACs also spent in support of Jones. In fact, this is probably rightly seen as something they should do more of in the future because they have rarely contested elections like this that are seen as Republican wins.
The NAACP made over 40,000 calls and texted nearly 160,000 people urging them to vote, and turnout of black voters was huge. There were also numerous efforts to offer rides to the polls.
The sexual predation probably helped them make the argument, but the win wouldn’t have happened without the hard work to promote turnout. (Really, one small difference out of anyone’s control, like bad weather, could have flipped the result.)
The win wouldn’t have happened if Jones didn’t run in the first place. He won by a slim margin and it’s going to be hard to convince me that Moore wouldn’t be the Senator Elect today if not for the charges involving young women.
Yes but see post 5. The scandal was not sufficient on its own.
The GOP lost 10 points due to the political climate: Trump is an unpopular President and the Republican congress is pushing a tax cut plan unpopular with experts and the public.
Moore was a weak candidate: polls showed him leading by only 5-10 points before the scandal broke. In a normal election it would have been 28-29.
The remaining 10 points are explained by the scandal, a strong Democratic candidate, adequate funding of the race and a terrific get out the vote effort.
Remove any of the 3 planks above and the GOP candidate would have won. Remove any aspect of the last plank and Moore would have won.
Ok. I’m using the chronological view, the assault charges came at the end, everything else altogether wouldn’t have given Jones a win up to that point. And the effectiveness of all the measures taken against Moore were enhanced by this becoming a much bigger national story. Everyone deserves credit for their part in helping Jones but this scandal was the game-changer.
An exceptionally large turnout for a special election. Large turnouts normally favor Democrats.
Also, 22,000 voters took the time and trouble to write in a candidate’s name. It’s a pretty safe bet they weren’t writing in someone as a protest against Doug Jones.
