Polls close across Alabama as bitter Senate campaign ends

MONTGOMERY, ALA. » After all the charges, denials, claims and promises, Alabama voters have had their say. Polls closed across the state Tuesday night after a scandal-stained Senate election campaign that tested the limits of party loyalty in the age of President Donald Trump and — win or lose — promised significant political consequences for Republicans everywhere.

At the center of the special election was fiery Christian conservative Roy Moore — “Judge Moore” to his supporters. The 70-yearold Republican was twice ousted as state Supreme Court chief justice after flouting federal law. This year he attempted a political resurrection against party officials horrified by accusations that he was guilty of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s.

In Moore’s path stood Democrat Doug Jones, 63, a former U.S. attorney best known for prosecuting two Ku Klux Klansmen who killed four black girls in Birmingham’s infamous 1963 church bombing. He was trying to become the first Democrat in a quarter century to win an Alabama Senate seat.

The stakes are high for Alabama and perhaps higher for the national Republican Party, which faces two painful outcomes: The GOP could lose a Senate seat in a deep-red state that would energize Democrats everywhere; or the party could win Tuesday’s election and welcome a man accused of sordid conduct to the U.S. Senate just as Republicans prepare to defend their congressional majorities in 2018.

The election has also renewed lingering tension between Trump, who backed Moore in the campaign’s final days, and the Republicans who control Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell chief among them, who called for Moore to abandon the campaign promise an ethics investigation if he’s elected.

On the ground in Alabama on Tuesday, those who stood in line to cast their ballots were far more focused on the candidates than the broader political fallout.

“He’s not a truthful man,” 69-year-old Mary Multrie said of Moore. Multrie, who works in a children’s hospital, was not influenced by accusations of sexual misconduct against Moore, she said, because she already did not like him. “He talks about God, but you don’t see God in his actions.”

She was among more than two dozen people queued up in the chilly morning air at Legion Field, a predominantly black precinct in Birmingham, to cast their ballots.

Al Bright, 63, who does refrigeration repair, said he voted for Moore.

“Regardless of the allegations against him, I believe he is an honorable man,” Bright said.

Teresa Brown, a 53-yearold administrative assistant, said she preferred Jones, in part, because he would be better positioned to work across party lines.