Democrat Doug Jones beats Trump-endorsed Republican Roy Moore for Alabama Senate seat
The stunning upset by Jones makes him the first Democrat elected to the US Senate from Alabama in a quarter-century and will trim the Republicans’ already narrow Senate majority to 51-49.
world Updated: Dec 13, 2017 09:53 IST
In a major setback to President Donald Trump, a Republican he had endorsed for the Senate despite allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour, was defeated on Tuesday in Alabama, a deeply conservative state that last elected a Democratic senator 25 years ago.
Roy Moore, the Republican candidate who had been abandoned by a majority of his own party leaders, lost to Democrat Doug Jones in a battle that wasn’t a battle until the allegations of sexual misconduct began surfacing, including by a woman who was under-age at the time she was allegedly assaulted.
Moore was running to fill a seat left vacant by Jeff Sessions who is Trump’s attorney general and lost to Jones, a former US attorney who had prosecuted two members of the Ku Klux Klan for a 1963 bombing of a church in which four African Americans girls had been killed.
Jones is the first Democrat Alabama has sent to the US senate since 1992. His upset victory owes much to Moore’s flawed candidacy, but was pulled off by the Democratic party machine that poured money and resources sensing a chance, howsoever small at the time, of victory.
Trump on Wednesday took to Twitter to congratulate Jones for the 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
After initially holding back his endorsement, Trump had come to fully embrace Moore, arguing that if the allegations were proven, the Republican candidate should step aside. But he needed every vote in the Senate to push through legislative agenda, which has had a patchy run thus far.
Trump broke with most members of his party, including the senior Republican senator from Alabama Richard Shelby who had announced they would not vote for Moore. Jeff Flake, a Republican senator from Arizona, public announced he had donated to Doug Jones’ campaign.
Moore, a former judge known for extreme right views, was hit by slew of allegations of sexual misconduct by women from the time he was a prosecutor. One of his accusers was only 14 at the time she said she was assaulted.
He has denied the allegations.