Democrat Doug Jones far ahead in Senate money race
Democrat Doug Jones is crushing Republican Roy Moore in fundraising ahead of their upcoming special U.S. Senate election in Alabama, keeping alive his party’s hope for an upset over a GOP rival stung by sexual misconduct accusations.
The winner of the
Dec. 12 contest in the deeply conservative state will take the seat held previously by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. No Democrat has won a
Senate seat in Alabama since 1992.
Campaign finance reports filed this week show Jones, a former federal prosecutor, raised $9.9 million from Oct. 1 to Nov. 22, to $1.7 million for Moore, the former jurist twice removed from his post as state Supreme Court chief justice.
For the entire campaign, Jones has now outraised Moore $11.4 million to $4.2 million. Jones reported $8.9 million in spending, more than double Moore’s $3.6 million outlay.
Many national Republicans have abandoned Moore after multiple women accused him of inappropriate sexual conduct when they were as young as 14. Moore has denied the charges, which were first reported by The Washington Post, and polls are suggesting that many Alabama voters haven’t been moved by the allegations.
Jones, meanwhile, cruised to the Democratic nomination with a lowprofile campaign. But he has since used his cash advantage to build a statewide campaign and dominate Moore on television airwaves.
Even before Moore’s accusers emerged, the erstwhile judge was not in favor with establishment Republicans in Washington. GOP forces, with the blessing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, spent millions of dollars against Moore during the Republican primary campaign. Moore nonetheless defeated the appointed incumbent, Luther Strange.
Moore counterpunched sharply, echoing President Donald Trump’s campaign by lumping together traditional Republican leaders, the Democratic Party and “the liberal media” as an elite cabal he’s trying to topple.
That leaves Moore the favorite, even as he almost certainly will underperform the usual Republican benchmarks in a state Trump won by nearly 28 percentage points.
Aiming to help out Moore, a political group aligned with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon said it is spending at least $150,000 on commercials attacking Jones over issues including abortion and immigration.