Prior to the Alabama special Senate election on Tuesday night, there was an ongoing discussion in the media about whether the Republicans would lose either way in Alabama. But as bad as it would have been for Republicans to have had Roy Moore (R) in their Senate caucus, losing this seat is, in our view, significantly worse. The victory by Sen.-elect Doug Jones (D) will cut the GOP’s Senate majority to a slim 51-49 margin, and it opens the door to an unlikely Democratic Senate takeover next year.
Perhaps more alarmingly for Republicans, the race reinforced several trends we’ve seen in other places this year. Here was another special election where a Democratic candidate ran very heavily ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing. Republican turnout was OK, just like in the Virginia gubernatorial race, but Democratic turnout was a lot better, both in urban and suburban parts of Alabama and also in the Black Belt — a rural, heavily African-American part of the state that gets its name from the color of the soil (turnout was exceptionally high throughout this region). CONT.
Kyle Kondik & Geoffrey Skelley, Sabato’s Crystal Ball