Friday, 22nd November 2024

Democrats win upset in Alabama Senate vote

Huge blow to President Donald Trump

Wednesday, 13th December 2017

Doug Jones.

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.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Roy Moore arrived on horseback to cast his vote.[/caption]

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.

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