Blacks need to vote if there’s chance of beating Roy Moore
SELMA, Ala. — The volatile Alabama Senate race has generated national headlines with allegations of sexual misconduct by Republican candidate Roy S. Moore — and the question of whether Moore’s white evangelical base will stick by him.
But the outcome could also hinge on another key voting bloc: African-Americans, whose participation in the Dec. 12 election will be crucial if the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, is to have a chance. Democrats have not won a statewide race in Alabama since 2008, and some worry that black voters, who make up more than half of the Democratic electorate, are not sufficiently engaged two weeks before the election.
Glen Browder, an emeritus professor of political science at Jacksonville State University who served as a Democratic congressman from Alabama from 1989 to 1996, said that Moore’s core supporters see the race in “moral and ideological” terms. They are highly motivated to go to the polls. But many black voters, he said, are not equally invested.
“‘I’d say it’s less likely that they will turn out,” he said.
Jones’ potential — and his potential problems — are evident in Selma, famous for its role in the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s, and set in the poor, agricultural, and heavily African-American swath of the state known as the Black Belt. The region is a prime target for Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.
Synethia Pettaway, chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party, said the allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore had heightened awareness of the race among her fellow black voters, particularly women.
“What I’m finding is that the women are not taking it lightly,” Pettaway said, “because I’m finding there are more women who have been sexually harassed or molested than people realize.”
But in recent interviews with some black residents who were shopping at a center near a Walmart, six of them said they were not aware that a Senate race was underway.
Those who had heard about
the race said they’re inclined to vote against Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Tabatha Jones, 39, a caregiver, said she’s sick of the incessant turmoil that Moore has stirred up over the years — not only over the recent allegations, which trouble her, but also the two times that Moore was effectively removed from the state’s high court after he refused to take down a monument to the Ten Commandments and disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
“It’s not so much Democrat or Republican,” Jones said. “It’s just all of the drama. Enough of the negativity.”
Others aren’t plugged in much to the Senate race.
At a nearby Subway sandwich shop, Civeta Boyd, a 24-year-old hairstylist, said she might have heard Moore’s name in the news. She was connecting him to the blizzard of stories about men behaving badly.
“Roy Moore?” Boyd said, between bites of a salad. “He was a news anchor, something like that?”
That lack of recognition could change. Jones has been
blanketing the airwaves with TV ads, including during the recent widely watched Iron Bowl football game between Auburn and Alabama.
National Democratic groups have been considering a late investment in advertising specifically aimed at boosting black turnout. But they are wary of spending any money that would stir up the Republican base. That could lead to targeted spending on black radio and mailers to AfricanAmerican neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, the civil-rights icon and an Alabama native, has campaigned for Jones. And Rep. Terri Sewell, Lewis’ fellow Democrat and the first black congresswoman from Alabama, recently toured six Selma churches with Jones.
But no matter Moore’s troubles, the Democrats face a serious challenge. The national party has struggled to reignite black enthusiasm in the post-Obama era, and state Democrats are plagued by infighting. Republicans hold all of Alabama’s statewide offices, and some say the power of Alabama’s traditional black political organizations, which once turned out minority voters
en masse, is substantially diminished. And the election will be held at a time of peak holiday distraction for voters of all races.
Jones, who is white, is still not well-known among many black voters, despite a sterling civil-rights credential: While working as a U.S. attorney, he successfully prosecuted two white Klansmen for their roles in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four young African-American girls.
Jones’ campaign manager, Wade Perry, said that the candidate would not tailor his message to black voters, but focus instead on the more universal messages of job creation and health care. One new TV ad addresses the allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore. It features Ivanka Trump’s statement that there is “a special place in hell for people who prey on children,” as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ comment that he has “no reason to doubt” Moore’s accusers.
“Doug has said from Day 1 that there is not a different message in different communities,” Perry said. “And what we’re seeing is folks are
responding to our message.”
A message more customized to black voters is being spread by a group called Vote or Die, led by Faya Ora Rose Toure, a longtime Selma activist. The statewide getout-the-vote effort has been handing out cards declaring that failing to vote on Dec. 12 would, among other things, obliterate housing and food programs, voting rights, civil rights and “efforts to stop police brutality on unarmed black and brown men.”
Over the years, Moore has gained a following among some black Alabama residents with his focus on conservative values and biblical law. James McCaney, the senior pastor at Victory Christian Fellowship Church in Florence, Alabama, said that allegations not proved in a court of law are not enough to move him from his support for Moore.
“We have proof that he’s a Christian,” McCaney said. “Nobody has said he’s lived anything other than that for 35 to 40 years at least. With that kind of track record, we just don’t flip that away because of some allegations.”
Moore has denied any wrongdoing.