Democrats win upset in Alabama Senate vote

A Democrat has won Alabama’s special Senate election, beating an embattled Republican opponent endorsed by President Donald Trump.

It was a close race heading into the vote despite the Republican facing a litany of sexual misconduct allegations.

Doug Jones’s was the first Democratic Senate victory in a quarter-century in Alabama, one of the reddest of red states, and proved anew that party loyalty is anything but sure in the age of Trump.

Republican Roy Moore’s loss was a major embarrassment for the president and a fresh wound for the nation’s already divided Republican party.

“We have shown not just around the state of Alabama, but we have shown the country the way - that we can be unified,” Jones declared as supporters in a Birmingham ballroom cheered, danced and cried tears of joy.

Still in shock, the Democrat struggled for words: “I think that I have been waiting all my life, and now I just don’t know what the hell to say.”

Moore, meanwhile, refused to concede and raised the possibility of a recount during a brief appearance at a sombre campaign party in Montgomery.\

“It’s not over,” Moore said.

“We know that God is still in control.”

From the White House, Trump tweeted his congratulations to Mr Jones “on a hard-fought victory” - but added pointedly that “the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!”

Jones takes over the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the term expires in January of 2021.

The victory by Jones, a former US attorney best known for prosecuting two Ku Klux Klansmen responsible for Birmingham’s infamous 1963 church bombing, narrows the Republican party’s advantage in the US Senate to 51-49.

That imperils already-uncertain Republican tax, budget and health proposals and injects tremendous energy into the Democratic Party’s early push to reclaim House and Senate majorities in 2018.