Here are a few things we learned from the dramatic victory of Doug Jones over Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate special election last night: 1. Special election results are often over-interpreted as political harbingers, and this particular election would no doubt have turned out much differently if Republicans hadn’t […] Read more »
Special Elections So Far Point To A Democratic Wave In 2018
Democrat Doug Jones’s stunning victory in Alabama on Tuesday should send a shiver down the spine of GOP elected officials everywhere. Yes, Jones likely would have lost the special election for a U.S. Senate seat had his Republican opponent, Roy Moore, not been an extremely flawed candidate. But Moore’s defeat […] Read more »
Alabama: How Jones Won
Democrat Doug Jones’ victory in yesterday’s special election surprised much of the political world, and it has created ripples that will be felt until Election Day in 2018. But, as is often the tendency with upsets, “pundits” were quick to hit cable news channels to make apocalyptic predications about what […] Read more »
Republicans Shouldn’t Assume Roy Moore Was An Outlier
I’ve been covering American elections at FiveThirtyEight for almost 10 years. During that time, by far the most remarkable outcomes — of course — were Barack Obama being elected president in 2008 and Donald Trump being elected in 2016. But in third and fourth place1 were two special elections to […] Read more »
Why Turnout Shifts in Alabama Bode Well for Democrats
Over the last eight years, political analysts had come to think that Democrats were at a distinct disadvantage in midterm elections, since their younger and nonwhite coalition was less likely to turn out than older and white voters. It is time to retire that notion. Tuesday in Alabama, Democrats benefited […] Read more »
‘A spiritual battle:’ How Roy Moore tested white evangelical allegiance to the Republican Party
Roy Moore’s failed run for Alabama’s Senate seat tested white evangelicals’ allegiance to the Republican Party. Would they vote for a candidate who shares their conservative views on social issues even though he was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women? Exit polls suggest they did just that, with 80 […] Read more »