Democrat Doug Jones wins Alabama Senate race
Donald Trump’s Republican Senate majority is on a knife-edge as Doug Jones emerges the victor in the deeply conservative state.
Donald Trump has been dealt a stunning blow with the upset victory of a Democratic Senate candidate in conservative Alabama, leaving the Republican majority in the US Senate on a knife-edge.
Doug Jones will be the first Democrat Senator elected in Alabama in a generation after he defeated the controversial Republican evangelical Christian and accused child sex offender Roy Moore.
“We have shown not just around the state of Alabama, but we have shown the country the way - that we can be unified,” Jones declared as supporters in a Birmingham ballroom cheered, danced and cried tears of joy.
“On a very personal level, I want to thank each of you for fulfilling a lifelong dream to serve in the U.S Senate.
— Doug Jones (@GDouglasJones) December 13, 2017
We have work to do in this state.
Thank you all, god bless you.â€
Doug Jones, election night victory.#RightSideOfHistory pic.twitter.com/mpgFGAqofg
He added, “This entire race has been about dignity and respect.” From the White House, Mr Trump graciously tweeted his congratulations to Mr Jones “on a hard-fought victory”
Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win. 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017
For the time being, Mr Moore is refusing to concede, telling campaign supporters “it’s not over.”
“It’s going to take some time,” the candidate says during a brief appearance before supporters. With all precincts reporting, Jones leads by 1.5 percentage points - three times what’s required to trigger a recount.
The narrow victory of Mr Jones will cut the Republican majority in the Senate to 51-49, leaving them with a buffer of only one vote over the Democrats to pass Trump’s legislative agenda and giving heart to the Democrats ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Mr Moore’s surprise loss came after high profile allegations by several women that the 70 year old former judge made unwanted sexual advances to them when they were teenagers, one as young as 14, and he was a prosecutor in his thirties. Mr Moore denied the claims but they saw his lead over Mr Jones evaporate as the poll neared.
Mr Jones, 63, had never run for office before throwing his hat into the ring in Alabama — and as a believer in climate change and abortion rights was initially given no chance in the solidly Republican state, where President Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by 28 points.
In defeating the Republican Roy Moore — whose campaign was dogged by claims of sexual misconduct — Mr Jones becomes the first Democrat since 1992 to carry a Senate race in Alabama, handing a major boost to the beleaguered US opposition party.
The former US attorney earned his reputation with the successful prosecution of two members of the Ku Klux Klan for a 1963 dynamite attack on a black church in Birmingham, Alabama.
The infamous Sunday morning bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which left four young girls dead, helped galvanise support for the civil rights movement and came just months after Martin Luther King Jr was arrested for organising nonviolent protests against racial segregation in Birmingham.
Mr Jones was a prosecutor in a pair of cases brought nearly 40 years later which led to the conviction of two of the white supremacists behind the attack.
Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the September 15, 1963 church bombing.
“Justice may have been delayed, but it was certainly not denied,” Jones said of the case, which he called “the most tarnishing crime in Alabama in the 20th century.” While Mr Jones was plainly the underdog at the outset of the race to succeed Jeff Sessions, who left his Senate seat vacant when appointed Trump’s attorney general, his Republican rival was a polarising figure in Alabama.
Mr Moore was forced to step down twice from the state supreme court, the second time for disobedience to the US Supreme Court’s ruling legalising gay marriage.
And Mr Jones’ electoral fortunes changed dramatically when The Washington Post reported that Mr Moore had allegedly preyed on teenage girls when he was a district attorney in his 30s — allegations denied by the now 70-year-old former judge.
Democratic donors from around the country began pouring money into the race, buying television advertisements for Jones and seeking to mobilise African-American voters, who make up about a quarter of the electorate in the state.
Former vice president Joe Biden made an appearance at a Jones rally in Birmingham in October and president Barack Obama pitched in with a robo-call for voters.
“This one’s serious. You can’t sit it out,” Mr Obama said.
Born in Fairfield, Alabama, the son of a steelworker, Jones attended high school when the state was in the midst of court-ordered desegregation of its high schools.
He became an assistant US attorney in Birmingham in 1980 and was named US attorney for the northern district of Alabama in 1997 by former president Bill Clinton.
Mr Jones and his wife, Louise, have three children and two grandchildren.
With AFP
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