Alabama Senate Race Between Roy Moore and Doug Jones Ends With More Controversy

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Alabama voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide between Roy S. Moore, a Republican, and Doug Jones, a Democrat, in a special Senate election that is destined to be remembered as one of the strangest and ugliest campaigns ever held in a state not lacking in unsightly politics.

And the outcome of this race, in which Mr. Moore’s path to victory in a deeply conservative state has been thrown into doubt over claims of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, carries immense implications. If Mr. Jones wins, Republicans would see their Senate advantage dwindle to a single seat, putting their majority in play next year. A Democratic victory would also raise questions about the red-state clout of President Trump, who, after initial reluctance following the allegations against Mr. Moore, has offered him a full-throated endorsement.

But should Mr. Moore survive here, it would illustrate the enduring limitations of Democrats in the South and suggest that the tug of partisanship is a forbiddingly powerful force.

Polls fully close in the state at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Some of her best friends are black and Jewish.

When Mr. Moore’s campaign held its final rally in Midland City late Monday, it was Kayla Moore, the candidate’s wife, who grabbed the headlines with her attempt to inoculate her husband from charges of bigotry that have dogged him. But her comments likely raised more eyebrows than praises:

Fake news says he doesn’t like women in leadership positions, yet he supports me as the president of the Foundation for Moral Law, that he started 15 years ago today. So happy birthday, Foundation for Moral Law. Our chairman is also a woman and a prominent officeholder in the bank, not to mention all of the women that work in our campaign, and there are many.

Fake news would also have you think that my husband doesn’t support the black community. Yet my husband appointed the very first black marshal to the Alabama Supreme Court, Mr. Willie James. When he first took office as chief justice many years ago, he brought with him three people from Etowah County; two were black, and one of them is here tonight. We have many friends that are black, and we also fellowship with them in church and in our home.

Fake news would tell you that we don’t care for Jews. I tell you all this because I’ve seen it all, so I just want to set the record straight while they’re here. One of our attorneys is a Jew. We have very close friends that are Jewish and rabbis, and we also fellowship with them.

Trump tweets, ‘VOTE ROY MOORE!’

Mr. Jones will need a strong turnout by black voters.

There may be no more significant question looming over the race than how much of the electorate will be African-American. If black Alabamians make up more than 25 percent of voters on Tuesday, Mr. Jones will have a strong chance to score an upset.

African-American turnout typically falls in nonpresidential election years, and voting rights advocates say that Alabama’s voter ID law and partisan administration of voting rules have the potential to suppress the black vote.

But Democrats have poured millions of dollars into a turnout drive aimed at black voters, over 90 percent of whom are expected to support Mr. Jones. Many of Alabama’s black voters live in the state’s cities, particularly Birmingham and Montgomery. In addition, the rural Black Belt (called that for its soil) that stretches across the middle of the state is home to largely poor counties that are predominantly African-American. These counties include Dallas, Lowndes, Marengo and Perry.

For Mr. Jones to have a chance to win, he will need to drive turnout in this region and also maximize his vote percentages in many of these jurisdictions to over 70 percent.

Rural whites are key for Mr. Moore.

If energizing African-Americans is key for Mr. Jones, it is equally crucial for Mr. Moore to get a strong turnout from his longtime base of rural whites. If these voters decide to stay home because of the sexual misconduct accusations — these conservatives are highly unlikely to cross party lines — it would greatly complicate the Republican’s electoral math.

These small-population counties, stretching across the state’s northern tier and just above the Gulf Coast, are likely to report early. Mr. Moore’s margins in them will go a long way toward indicating whether he can withstand Mr. Jones’s expected success, reported later in the night, in Alabama’s cities.

If Mr. Moore is hitting the sort of marks he reached in his Republican runoff victory in September, over 60 percent in a number of rural counties, he will most likely claim victory.

To win, Mr. Jones must pile up votes in the cities.

It is hard to overstate the disdain many voters in Alabama’s cities and suburbs harbor toward Mr. Moore. Asked whom she was supporting, one voter in downtown Birmingham, who lives in nearby Homewood, volunteered on Monday that she would rather throw up in the street than cast a ballot for him.

Yet it is not enough for Mr. Jones to just win over those college-educated voters who most loathe Mr. Moore. The Democrat also has to persuade Republicans who are more ambivalent about the race. In 2012, when Mr. Moore returned to the state court after winning by only a 4-point margin statewide, he lost Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham and is the state’s most populous, by 26 points. Mr. Jones will have to exceed that margin in what is his native county if he is to have a chance at winning.

And he also must convincingly win in the state’s next-largest counties, Mobile and Madison, which are also filled with educated and affluent voters. Counties adjacent to Birmingham (Shelby County) and Mobile (Baldwin County) could also prove consequential. These are traditionally Republican jurisdictions, heavily white and filled with suburbanites.

But they are also full of middle-class voters who may be uneasy with the allegations against Mr. Moore and the defiantly retrograde political persona he has created. Mr. Jones can lose in such places and still win the race, but he has to narrow the margin and lose by less than a Democrat usually does there.

If write-in candidates do well, it might not take 50 percent to claim victory.

It is quite difficult for an Alabama Democrat to capture over 50 percent of the vote. But Mr. Jones may not have to capture a majority to win Tuesday. Senator Richard C. Shelby, a Republican and the state’s longest-serving lawmaker, used a national television interview Sunday to remind Alabamians that he had written in the name of another Republican rather than supporting Mr. Moore. His example could spur others in the party to do the same.

And there are two ready options. Lee Busby, a Republican and a retired Marine colonel from Tuscaloosa, has announced a write-in bid. And a number of votes will almost certainly go to someone widely considered the most important man in the state, the University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban.

The more Republicans or independents who write in the name of a third candidate, the lower the threshold Mr. Jones needs to reach. Depending on the number of write-ins, he could potentially win even if he only captures 48 percent of the vote.