Squeaker
Democratic former U.S Attorney Doug Jones is the winner of the hotly-contested Alabama special election to fill the open U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions. The Associated Press and Fox News called the race for Jones at about 10:23 PM.
Republicans originally believed President Trump’s nomination of Sessions to become his Attorney General would not imperil what was believed to be a safely Republican seat no matter who the candidate was.Â
The vote count was close much of the evening, but Moore was winning until about 10 PM, two hours after the polls closed. Jones moved ahead, and by 10:20 most predictors put Jones in the lead, but barely.
Roy Moore, a veteran Alabama politician and far right wing religious extremist, was dogged late in the race by allegations of nine women who accused the former state Supreme Court Chief Justice of inappropriate sexual behavior, including child molestation, sexual assault, and aggressively pursuing teenaged girls. According to exit polls, that was not a problem for Moore:
Moore has a much larger national profile, thanks to being removed as Chief Justice twice, both times after placing his own personal Biblical beliefs over federal law.Â
Jones has a much stronger background than Moore. He was a U.S. Attorney who successfully prosecuted two KKK members for murder of four Black girls in an atrocious church bombing.Â
Moore refused to debate Jones, who is a strong civil rights advocate and moderate Democrat. Moore barely campaigned, but had the backing of white nationalism supporter and Breitbart publisher Steve Bannon, along with Bannon’s former boss, President Donald Trump. The weekend before the election Moore took his wife Kayla to an Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.
Moore’s extremist views cemented him to the Trump’s-Bannon-Breitbart “alt-right” base. He has sent his career attacking social justice issues including same-sex marriage, and has made several strikingly racist or seemingly pro-slavery remarks.
Monday night Kayla Moore’s, wife Kayla Moore, stunned the nation by insisting she and her husband are not anti-Semitic because, “One of our attorneys is a Jew.”Â
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