QUOTE OF THE DAY
Moore blot gone; so is Senate seat
“I’m relieved and I believe a lot of Republicans are relieved that Roy Moore and some of his people aren’t the face of the Republican Party that I know.”
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., referring to the Republican candidate for the
U.S. Senate in Alabama who is accused of sexual misconduct
WASHINGTON — As Democrats celebrated a Senate win in Alabama, Republicans picked through the wreckage Wednesday after a blow that showcased voter backlash to sexual-misconduct allegations and the limits of President Donald Trump’s political influence.
And the GOP’s legislative agenda was in limbo as questions swirled over when Democrat Doug Jones would be sworn in and how that timing would affect party goals such as a tax overhaul.
Trump said Wednesday that Roy Moore’s loss was not his preferred outcome. He said he “would have liked to have had the seat” and an important Senate vote as GOP lawmakers scratch for legislative victories.
But he also acknowledged, “A lot of Republicans feel differently. They feel very happy about the way it turned out.”
Indeed, many establishment-minded Republicans, in and out of Washington, cheered Moore’s loss as the impact of the surprise Democratic win in long-Republican Alabama echoed throughout the political world. The prospect of a high-profile Republican
senator dogged by sexual-misconduct accusations and an all-but-certain ethics investigation had unnerved a GOP fearful of an albatross around its candidates’ necks in next year’s campaigns.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Moore would have brought a “radioactive” element to the Senate GOP.
“I’m relieved, and I believe a lot of Republicans are relieved that Roy Moore and some of his people aren’t the face of the Republican Party that I know,” said Shelby, who said he cast a write-in vote for another Republican and never backed down in his opposition to Moore, a controversial Christian conservative.
Shelby was the last Democrat to win a Senate seat from Alabama in 1992, before switching parties two years later.
More than 22,000 write-in votes were cast Tuesday, more than the margin of difference between the winner and loser, suggesting many other voters refused to vote for a Democrat but couldn’t accept Moore.
In a message issued by the campaign Wednesday evening, Moore said his campaign is still waiting for the official vote count from Alabama officials.
“In this race, we have not received the final count to include military and provisional ballots,” the candidate said. “This has been a very close race and we are awaiting certification by the Secretary of State.”
The margin between the final vote tallies was larger than the required 0.5 percent for a recount in Alabama.
In his phone call to Jones, Trump also invited him to the White House.
“It was a very gracious call. I very much appreciated it,” Jones said of the Wednesday conversation with Trump. “We talked about finding that common ground to work together.”
Yet Jones’ victory marked a setback for Trump and top political ally Steve Bannon, both of whom had devoted time, resources and political capital to Moore in recent days even as he faced the allegations of sexual misconduct and espoused views that alienated women, racial minority groups, gays and Muslims.
Despite the election outcome’s relief for one wing of the GOP, the fight for the party’s soul was hardly decided.
Allies of Bannon, who declared war on the party’s establishment after leaving the White House earlier in the year, dismissed the loss as little more than a temporary setback that would soon be forgotten. Republicans cheering Moore’s loss, they said, would simply enrage Trump’s most loyal supporters nationwide, who already suspected some Republican leaders were trying to undermine the president’s agenda.
“They’re stomping on the very base they need to turn out for their candidates in the general election in 2018,” said Andy Surabian, a senior adviser to the Bannon-backed Great America political action committee.
He contended that “the average Republican voter across the country is pointing their finger at Mitch McConnell and the Republican establishment.”
Conservative activist Mark Meckler did just that.
“One hundred percent of this I hang around Mitch McConnell’s neck,” said Meckler, an early tea party leader, referring to the mainstream Republican who is Senate majority leader.
Likewise, conservative U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., said, “Mitch McConnell should have stayed out of this race.
“If he would have, we would have a Republican senator coming out instead of a Democratic one,” he continued in an interview on MSNBC.
Bannon, speaking on Breitbart News radio, credited Democrats for their “ground game.”
“If you get outworked, you’re going to lose, and I’ve got to tell you, their ability to get out votes — that’s what it comes down to,” he said.
SWEARING-IN TIMING
It’s unclear how the loss will affect the Republicans’ immediate governing agenda.
The Alabama secretary of state’s office said Tuesday that the election will be certified between Dec. 27 and Jan. 3, giving Republicans as little as two weeks to pass a federal budget and the tax legislation with their current 52-48 majority. After the election is certified, the Senate will set a date for Jones’ swearing-in.
McConnell on Tuesday said Republican Luther Strange, who holds the seat now as an appointee, will remain in the Senate through the end of the current session.
“Once the state certifies and sends us the paperwork, the new senator is sworn in. But since the state said they don’t expect to certify until the end of the month, and we expect to finish before the end of the month ...” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart wrote in an email.
Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, however, called for McConnell to delay a vote on the GOP tax plan until after Jones is sworn in.
“It would be wrong for Senate Republicans to jam through this tax bill without giving the newly elected senator from Alabama the opportunity to cast his vote,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. Schumer said he had spoken to Jones but did not ask him how he would vote on the measure.
Jones takes over the seat previously held by Jeff Sessions, whose appointment as U.S. attorney general left a vacancy that was filled by Strange. The term expires in January of 2021.
In the end, Jones won about 50 percent of the vote compared with about 49 percent for Moore, with Jones benefiting from strong black turnout and a white share of the vote about twice as large as Barack Obama won in 2008. Fifty-six percent of women voted for Jones, according to exit polls, while 58 percent of men voted for Moore. Just under 2 percent of voters in the state wrote in a third candidate.
Jones, a former federal prosecutor known for convicting Ku Klux Klan members for the 1963 Birmingham bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, cast his campaign as an opportunity for the state to turn the page on the divisive politics of its past.
He supported protecting entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid, defended the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and said he broadly supported abortion. A gun owner, he supported strengthening the background-check system.
“At the end of the day, this entire race has been about dignity and respect,” Jones said at his victory rally in Birmingham. “This campaign has been about the rule of law. This campaign has been about common courtesy and decency and making sure that everyone in this state, regardless of which ZIP code you live in, is going to get a fair shake.”
But talk of Moore dominated the campaign, from the allegations of misconduct to his contentious stints as Alabama Supreme Court chief justice,
where both terms ended in his removal for defying federal law, including his refusal to acknowledge the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
Despite the accusations, Moore maintained the support of his base.
In Midland City, where Moore closed his campaign Monday night with a large rally, Pam McLain, 63, said she accepted Moore’s denials of sexual misconduct.
“I just don’t believe it. I know it happens because it happened to me. I have been sexually harassed, on two different
jobs, but I don’t believe this. I think it’s been too long, and I just don’t believe it,” McLain said.