Moore is Less

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Democrat Doug Jones was elected to the Alabama U.S. Senate seat that had been vacated by Jeff Sessions. He defeated controversial GOP opponent Roy Moore. Almost everybody, including yours truly, thought that despite all the allegations against Moore, he would still eke out a win because of how right-wing the electorate is in that state.

After all, Trump carried the state last year by more than a two-to-one margin.

However, Jones did pull it off:

The results of a special Senate election in Alabama on Tuesday will carry immense national implications for President Trump and both parties, after a strange and ugly campaign left voters exhausted by the politicking and confused at the polls.

A victory by the Republican candidate, Roy S. Moore, who has been accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, would illustrate the enduring limitations of Democrats in the deeply conservative South. A win by his Democratic rival, Doug Jones, to fill the seat left vacant when the president appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general, would shrink Republicans’ Senate advantage to a single seat, putting their majority in play.