Take notes: Lessons from Alabama
Good character matters and the results of Tuesday’s special election in Alabama indicate that upstanding morals can win, regardless of party, when people care enough to cast ballots — and vote their conscience, even when it is against their party’s nominee.
Doug Jones, a Birmingham attorney and Democrat wellknown for prosecuting the KKK, managed to beat Republican nominee Roy Moore in
Alabama’s U.S. Senate race by a slim margin of 49.9 to 48.4 percent, with 1.7 percent of votes going to write-in candidates.
Though Moore denied them, the former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court was overwhelmed in recent weeks with multiple allegations of past sexual misconduct — including multiple allegations he pursued romantic relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s.
Fox News reported results of a new voter analysis/polling technique it utilized, which indicated 51 percent of voters on Tuesday believed the accusations against Moore. The analysis also showed that 59 percent of voters thought Jones has strong moral character, while 57 percent said Moore doesn’t.
Translation: The conservative evangelical values you espouse won’t get you elected if you don’t live by that example.
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said voter turnout was “extraordinarily high” and played a major role in the election. More than 1.3 million registered voters cast their ballots, breaking every record for a special election in the state’s history. Merrill says an estimated 33 to 35 percent of Alabama’s 3.3 million registered voters cast a ballot, more than the expected 25 percent turnout. “Forty percent of the people participating is really phenomenal, that’s basically what you would get in a regular general election for the state of Alabama, and I think that people just wanted to make sure their voices were heard and their votes were counted,” Merrill said.
Indeed.
Jones’ victory is being attributed to the fact he received strong support among AfricanAmericans and white liberals with enough crossover support from conservatives who couldn’t in good conscience vote for Moore.
Among those GOP voters was the state’s most powerful Republican, Sen. Richard Shelby, who some say contributed significantly to Jones’ victory margin of about 1.5 percentage points.
The six-term senator made a late campaign show of declaring he couldn’t vote for Moore after allegations of sexual misconduct emerged.
Shelby, who was the last Democrat to win a Senate seat from Alabama in 1992 before switching parties two years later, declared the charges credible, despite Moore’s denials, and the senior senator said he’d write in another Republican. Incomplete returns showed that about 1.7 percent of the more than 1.3 million Alabama voters did the same thing. That margin of votes cost Moore his victory, as those are votes that likely would have gone to a more upstanding Republican.
Interestingly, Republicans lost voters under 45 by 23 points. Sixty-one percent of voters 18 to 44 voted for Jones. That voting block has the potential for voting in more elections than the older age group who supported Moore. It will be interesting to see party votes by age in future elections across the country.
So what do these results tell us? Character matters. Voter turnout matters. Get organized, get active and make an impact at the polls. Advocate for issues; campaign for candidates, and run for office. YOU matter in this process.