Doug Jones won Alabama (by a slim margin) for one reason and one reason only - Roy Moore's sex scandals. Had his accusers not come forward at just the "right" political moment (which makes their claims all the less plausible), Jones would have lost by double digits. The Alabamans who gave Trump a big victory in the 2016 election didn't suddenly become liberal Democrats, they just chose not to vote for Moore because of the teen sex allegations against him.
There is no move to the Left in Southern States, and there's no political strategy or set of winning issues for Democrats to replicate in other Deep Red States, unless their strategy is going to be the digging up dubious sex scandals on all of their opponents from now on.
There may be no move to the left but there is a demographic change occurring.
There was also the problem of Roy Moore doing his best Hillary Clinton imitation and mailing it in over the last few weeks of the campaign.
These “analyses” of Jones’ victory by Democrats and their allies are inevitably cases of wishful thinking bordering on the delusional.
Doug Jones won Alabama (by a slim margin) for one reason and one reason only - Roy Moore’s sex scandals. Had his accusers not come forward at just the “right” political moment (which makes their claims all the less plausible), Jones would have lost by double digits. The Alabamans who gave Trump a big victory in the 2016 election didn’t suddenly become liberal Democrats, they just chose not to vote for Moore because of the teen sex allegations against him.
There is no move to the Left in Southern States, and there’s no political strategy or set of winning issues for Democrats to replicate in other Deep Red States, unless their strategy is going to be the digging up dubious sex scandals on all of their opponents from now on.
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Don’t forget the GOP establishment getting the allegations rolling and torpedoing Moore. They publicly said “Vote against him by writing in a candidate” and even Flake publicly gave money to Jones.
You’re correct though, all the blacks in Alabama couldn’t get Obama to win the state his first time around when it was a chance to make history, I doubt this Moore loss was nothing more than a very well coordinated attack from every direction including his own party, that caught his supporters off guard.
Trump had his own sex scandals which the 650,000 Alabama Trump voters who stayed home last week either chose not to believe or didn't think were a big deal.
It's more than just sex scandals. Alabamans just didn't like Roy Moore. They didn't like him the two times he ran for governor where he was thoroughly trounced and for his sole statewide electoral victory in 2012, he barely squeaked past the finish line with 400,000 fewer votes than Mitt Romney.
