Back in November after Democrats won a sweeping victory in Virginia and in races across the country, I said that the Democratic Party should go all-in in backing Doug Jones in the Alabama special election for U.S. Senate.
They did, and last night Doug Jones broke through in the GOP’s solid South to become the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in a generation.
Roy Moore was not the only loser on Tuesday. Donald Trump is a two-time loser in Alabama, having backed Luther Strange in the GOP primary and going all-in for the accused serial child sexual predator Roy Moore. Robert and Rebekah Mercer’s white nationalist attack dog, Stephen Bannon from Breitbart, suffered another defeat in his war against the GOP establishment. And FAUX News (aka Trump TV), which went all in for the accused serial child sexual predator Roy Moore.
Voter turnout was higher than anticipated (but still, 35%?) especially among African-American Democratic voters. Roy Moore underperformed in most counties from his previous election to the state supreme court, indicating a depressed Republican voter turnout — 2% of Alabama Republicans cast a write-in vote, unable to bring themselves to vote for Moore.
Doug Jones managed to gain 30 percent of the white vote, double the 15% Barack Obama received in 2012. See, Preliminary exit poll results: How different groups voted in Alabama.
Doug Jones gained cross-over votes from college educated urban voters and women who were turned off by the child sexual predator allegations against Roy Moore. Still, Roy Moore won these demographic groups.
Moore held a small edge among white women with college degrees and a roughly 25-point lead among white men with college degrees. Moore led by almost 50 points among white women without degrees and by 60 points among white men without college degrees.
Independent voters broke for Doug Jones, which added to his Democratic base vote.
Young voters ages 18 to 44 supported Doug Jones by a roughly 20-point margin over Moore. Older voters 45 and older, especially seniors, favored Roy Moore over Jones by about 20 points.
The urban vs. rural voter divide was also present in Alabama.
Donald Trump won Alabama with 62 percent of the vote in 2016, but his support has declined to an even 48-48 split on job performance, and remains polarized by party identification.
While Doug Jones has been declared the winner, Roy Moore has not conceded and is threatening a recount. Roy Moore refuses to concede Senate race, puts hopes on recount.
It is Too soon to know whether recount coming in Alabama Senate race:
Secretary of State John Merrill said it’s too soon to know whether the margin of victory by Doug Jones in Alabama’s special election on Tuesday will trigger the state’s automatic recount law.
State law calls for an automatic recount in a general election if a candidate wins by not more than 0.5 percent, unless the defeated candidate submits a waiver.
Overseas ballots, provisional ballots and possibly write-in ballots will have to be counted before a final margin is determined in Jones’ narrow win over Roy Moore.
The Associated Press reported that with all 2,220 precincts reporting, Jones received 671,151 votes, 50 percent, to Moore’s 650,436, 48.4 percent.
There were 22,819 write-in votes cast.
Merrill declined to speculate when asked if he thought there were enough overseas ballots and provisional ballots to possibly affect the outcome.
Overseas ballots can continue to come in until noon on Dec. 19.
County boards of registrars will determine which provisional ballots will count.
As for write-in ballots, the secretary of state’s office will notify counties on Dec. 18 whether they have to be counted. A state law says that if the margin of victory in a race exceeds the number of write-in votes, they are not counted.
County canvassing boards will count provisional ballots, overseas ballots and write-in ballots, if necessary, on Dec. 19. Counties must report results to the secretary of state’s office by Dec. 22.
Merrill said the final results will be certified by the state canvassing board no earlier than Dec. 26 and no later than Jan. 3.
A recount could only come after certification, Merrill said. The recount would begin within 72 hours after certification.
If Jones’ margin of victory remains greater than 0.5 percent after all the votes are counted, Moore could still demand a recount. He would have to so so within 48 hours of the vote certification and would have to post a bond to cover the cost of conducting the recount. If the recount changed the outcome, the state would bear the cost.
In any event, the Septuagenarian Ninja Turtle, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, says that Alabama’s new senator will not be seated until the next session begins in January. Mitch McConnell: Alabama’s new senator won’t be seated this year:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that no matter who wins Tuesday’s Senate election in Alabama, Republican Luther Strange will remain in the seat until the end of the session this year.
“Sen. Strange is going to be here through the end of this session,” McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters.
say good bye to state rep. dan johnson satan is greeting him now! better keep the guns away from don shooter!
Dan Johnson was a state rep and an evangelical preacher who just committed suicide after it came out that he molested a sleeping teenage girl while he was drunk.
He blamed PTSD and “fake news”, because of course he did.
He was a messed up dude who needed help.
That handsome devil Blake Farenthold is retiring because he doesn’t know how to behave.
Here’s some hot Farenthold highlights!
“Farenthold was asked what it would take for him to rescind his endorsement (of Trump), and whether Trump saying “I really like raping women” would be sufficient, Farenthold said that he “would have to consider it.””
He believes The Internets over the CIA.
In 2010, images of Farenthold dressed in one-piece fleece “ducky” pajamas alongside women in lingerie emerged on the website thecrushgirls.
Sorry, ladies, he’s married.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCHyIqhxxVM&ab_channel=texas27footage
“Sorry ladies…” LOL
He was a major contender in Bill Maher’s Flip a District. Good ole Blake’s just another worthless & disgusting fat f**k who helps put the Repug in Repuglican.
Would be remiss to not post this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqbGXl5lxEg
Tull was my first concert, back in 76. Anderson was on fire, and Martin Barre was tight.
ELO and the great Roy Buchanan filled out the bill.
As a teenage guitar player, Buchanan was a revelation.
ELO, on the other hand, was busted playing to tape. The musical version of lip syncing.
Shame! Shame I say!
Snuck out of my parent’s house and saw Tull in 1971 at the Alexandria Roller Rink. For a budget busting $5.00. This was after Benefit came out. Saw Roy Buchanan at a nightclub in Georgetown in 1977 after Loading Zone was released. I know, I’m showing my years. Like what Atrios said on his blog this morning: “I’m so old I can remember when I was young.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mU6USTBRE&ab_channel=alyankovicVEVO
May Farenthold, Trump, Mercer, Wynn, Adelson and the rest of those who are actively destroying our Democracy wind up here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygzdDPgOhKc
Not mine, this is from Lily Adams – “Let this sink in, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions’ Senate seat was taken by a civil rights lawyer who convicted Klansmen. Justice is sweet.”
Goddamn I love America!
Love it!
steve how do you know for certain the women are telling the truth? when the man says ALL of these women are lying! almost in none of these cases was it just one woman.
“steve how do you know for certain the women are telling the truth?”
Captain, I honestly don’t know if they are telling the truth or not. And no one else does either. That is my concern…their accusations are sufficient to destroy anyone about whom they complain. It is a witch hunt…
Off topic (not totally) but y’all deserve a treat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr6lr_VRsEo
Today’s song is for the good people of Alabama, those who organized for Doug Jones to get out the vote and have given us hope that, just maybe, that big ship in the ocean just might be turning…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUZOKvYcx_o
I saw a great comment on the Doug Jones win:
Blacks in Alabama just did more for poor whites that Trump will ever do.
Racism, misogyny, homophobia, Mulsim-phobia, child-abuse, religious intolerance, nationalism, Nazi’s, and Don the Con Trump are limping this morning.
Happy Holidays Everyone. And I mean EVERYONE.
Southern black organizers were bad ass back in the day and it’s good to know their spirit has infused successive generations.
God knows we need them now.
Yep. And Democrats need to get back into all 50 states. They almost missed this one.
Doug Jones is not the most charismatic person, and before Moore became a candidate the Dems in Alabama were like the Dems in Arizona.
MIA.
Not to discount how much Americans dislike Trump and want their country back, but Roy Moore is probably the only Republican who could lose in Alabama.
Fun side note, and I’m not alone in this, I’m even seeing lots of Republicans saying the same thing this morning, racist lying POS Steve Bannon took one in the twig and berries hard last night.
That makes me very happy.
Trump weighs in…
Donald J. TrumpVerified account
@realDonaldTrump
2h2 hours ago
If last night’s election proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate.
Donald J. TrumpVerified account
@realDonaldTrump
5h5 hours ago
The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!
So Trump is saying they need good candidates that can win.
He is THE premier political thinker of our time. 🙂
From Wikipedia:
“Gordon Douglas Jones (born May 4, 1954) is an American attorney and politician, who has served as a federal prosecutor and was elected in 2017 in an upset victory to be a United States senator from Alabama.
Jones served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 1997 to 2001. He prosecuted the remaining two Ku Klux Klan perpetrators of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing which killed four African-American girls in 1963, and also secured an indictment against the Atlanta Olympic Park Bomber.”
Some things do change, eventually. One more here for the resistance, past and present…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aor6-DkzBJ0
Now that claims of sexual harassment worked to defeat Roy Moore, we can expect LOTS of similar claims against Republicans being made during the 2018 election. Nothing works better than success so I anticipate that democrat supporting women will be falling over each other in the weeks before the election claiming sexual harassment and outright rape.
AzBM’s strenuous efforts to prove that Alabama is turning democrat made me laugh. He is trying very hard to make Doug Jones victory appear to be the result of voting trends, rather than the far less noble reason that Moore was defeated by the strategic placement of a series of unsubstantiated claims of harassment made just before the election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jclPWidTfak&ab_channel=ProfessorElemental
Steve, are you suggesting Repubs will not try to dig up sexual misconduct claims against Dems? Of course both parties have done this, and will continue to do it.
“… claims of harassment made just before the election.” I don’t know what you mean by “just before the election” but a very large proportion of the ballots were cast well before the claims were made.
“…both parties have done this, and will continue to do it.”
I agree…but that is not what is going on here. What is happening right now is that accusations are being made by partisan women with significant numbers of people choosing to condemn another person (usually destroying that person’s life) with no regard to whether the accusation is true or not.
There is nothing wrong with vetting a candidate to see what is in the background of that person’s life. There is nothing right about accepting an accusation as true with no evidence nor any attempt to develop evidence.
You fail hard, thirsty trollboi.
Two cops and several lawyers are corroborating the women’s stories, saying without proof they couldn’t do anything at the time.
There are also 30 people who say the women told them about Roy at the time. Mall security and staff from high school football games who knew to keep Moore away from young girls.
And most of the women have said they voted Trump. Partisan women, really, you’re going with that lie?
You think the women’s lives aren’t going to be hurt? They’re perceived as helping a Democrat win. In Alabama.
I’m sure they’re getting all kinds of offers for Sunday dinner.
You are doing what right wing trolls do, spreading misleading information. Or as I call them, lies.
Or, to be kind, you just have your head so far up the alt-right media butt you can’t hear anything else.
Funny story, there are folks in Alabama saying Moore won’t concede because he can’t believe God would allow a Democrat to win.
Moore’s a freak, troll boy, and you can whine all you want, but guess what? Jones is still the Senator from Alabama, and he will be when you wake up tomorrow, too.
“Two cops and several lawyers are corroborating the women’s stories, saying without proof they couldn’t do anything at the time.”
In other words, NO EVIDENCE!
“There are also 30 people who say the women told them about Roy at the time.”
And none of them stepped forward at the time, either. How convenient that they remember now…
“Mall security and staff from high school football games who knew to keep Moore away from young girls.”
BS! There is no contemporary evidence that was the case. It is only in hindsight that people are “remembering” these things. Never a mention at the time. How convenient that at a time when democrats hate Republicans more than ever and they are foaming at the mouth to take back Congress, they are finding all this anecdotal “evidence”. In other words, Tom, you won’t find a single shred of real evidence that the accusations are true. You choose to believe they are true because it fits your prejudices.
“And most of the women have said they voted Trump.”
And I am supposed to believe that because they said it? If the actual accusations are false, it is not a stretch to believe the voting for Trump statement is also a lie. Again, you accept it because you choose to do so. You don’t choose to believe it because there is actual evidence; you believe because you like what they are saying.
Get off your high horse, Tom. You have no more evidence than I do as to whether they are telling the truth or not. As usual, your are trying to pass off your opinion as fact, and you seek out those who agree with you to “prove” you are correct. It is stupid to do that, but you are comfortable with it so I don’t expect you to ever do anything different.
“Jones is still the Senator from Alabama, and he will be when you wake up tomorrow, too.”
Have I even implied that I don’t accept that as the way it is? Do you think that bothers me all that much? Well, I haven’t and it doesn’t. My concern is that unsubstantiated accusations are considered sufficient to ruin people’s lives. If you were truly concerned about justice it would bother you, too. But it doesn’t…not even a tiny bit. You are very comfortable with it because it plays in your favor. Despite all your claims to the contrary, you don’t give a rat’s ass about what is happening. You are too busy giggling and tittering over the results without regard for what this could mean in the long run. Don’t be surprised if the shoe goes on the other foot, and unsubstantiated accusations start hurting people you care about…and don’t complain about the injustice of it all. You have thrown away any credibility for that by your current giddy glee.
By the way, whatever happened to those unsubstantiated accusations you were making about Trump colluding with the Russians. That is not working out for you at all, and the more Mueller and his crew investigate, the more that it is coming out that maybe the democrats have a problem in that regard. Or have you not been paying attention?
Somebody’s triggered this morning.
First of all troll boy, I am not making the case that Alabama is turning Democratic. This was a unique set of circumstances brought about by Republicans themselves in selecting a deeply flawed candidate in Roy Moore in a low turnout special election. In regards to the exit poll data, you are a truism about conservative voters: facts do not matter. “Don’t bother me with the facts, I know what I believe!” You clearly do not believe Roy Moore’s accusers, as did 43% of Alabama voters, 49% of male voters as compared to 51% of female voters who do believe them.
“You clearly do not believe Roy Moore’s accusers…”
You are wrong about that, AzBM. I don’t know if they lying or not, any more than you know. In this current climate, accusations, whether true or not, are sufficient to destroy people. As I have said before, this is a modern day witch hunt in a straight forward sense: An accusation is considered a conviction by a significant number of people. A mere accusation is considered evidence enough to destroy people’s lives without further investigation.
You’re the lawyer, AzBM…where is the justice in the current climate of recrimination and personal destruction with no evidence? Explain how this is a good thing. Doesn’t it even bother you a little bit?
Having handled more sexual harrassment claims than I can recall, there are some truths that I have learned from the experience. First, women do not come forward to make these claims lightly. They are cognizant of the fact that they are likely to be retaliated against and that making the claim will color their future employment prospects. In a public setting, they know that they are opening themselves up to personal attacks and character assasination from people who do not know them and have no personal knowledge of the facts (as you are doing), and from their accusers, as Donald Trump and Roy Moore are doing. Many women choose to remain silent and endure the abuse rather than make waves by filing a claim for this reason. Where is the “justice” in that? The #MeToo movement is changing this dynamic, women will be silent no more. They are standing up to sexual harrassment and abuse that is endemic in our society and are saying “no more!” in asserting their legal rights and individual dignity. Second, the case where a woman makes a false claim against a man to cause him harm are exceeedingly rare in my experience.
“Having handled more sexual harrassment claims than I can recall…”
If you were involved with people making complaints, then I assume it was a legal procedure. If so, I am confident that some sort of investigation took place and real evidence was developed. I have ZERO problem with that and whatever happened as a result of the investigation was very likely deserved.
My problem is that so many (I think ALL of them, so far, but I could be wrong) accusations are being made and the issue is considered settled. NO investigation is done, but the person being accused is considered guilty.
“…there are some truths that I have learned from the experience.”
I do appreciate your taking the time to relate your version of lessons learned from your experience. But if your suppositions are taken as definitive that there is no reason to question the accusations, and actions are taken to punish the accused without real evidence, then you have a “Kangaroo Court”. The idea of “Innocent until proven guilty” is turned on it’s ear. Any real justice for the accused is denied.
“They are…saying “no more!” in asserting their legal rights and individual dignity.”
What of the legal rights and individual dignity of the accused? Do they mean nothing? My objection to the “#me too” movement is that the accused forgoes any rights they have and are convicted in the court of public opinion.
Please understand me that I don’t care whether the accused is a liberal or a conservative, if their rights are being stripped from them, it is wrong. Legally and morally.
One thing is guaranteed for the Narcissist in Chief, if Moore won, Trump would take credit for his massive influence, if Moore lost, Trump would say he never heard of Moore. Then when Trump further thinks the extremely shallow thoughts that he has, he will say thousands of illegal voters voted, and there was obvious fraud. But Trump is never responsible for anything, unless it’s a big win.
After a short period where most of the GOP rightly said Moore was unfit, somebody whispered in their ears that Moore better be elected because no matter what kind of human waste he is, they want that vote.
And that means that in mansions across America today, there are some very butthurt rich people, who are very upset about their “investment” in the corrupt Republican party.
Thank you people of Alabama!