Alabama voters face dramatic choice in Senate race and several counties are key
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Associated Press Southeast political correspondent Bill Barrow breaks down the Alabama U.S. Senate race between Democratic candidate Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore on the eve of the special election. (Dec. 11)
AP
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The election to determine Alabama’s next senator has drawn tens of millions of dollars and the world’s attention into the state.
Now the decision is in Alabama voters’ hands, and the polls are open til 7 p.m. CT Tuesday. Democrat Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore are on the ballot.
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Doug Jones still has hurdles to overcome in Alabama
â–º Monday: 6 things to watch in the Alabama Senate election Tuesday
â–º Sunday: President Trump ‘on trial’ in Alabama’s Senate election
Jones has stressed a platform of job creation and health care while soft-pedaling other issues.
Moore has talked more about Donald Trump but otherwise has run a campaign not unlike his previous statewide ones, with an emphasis on getting his loyal base of voters to the polls. In his public appearances, he has stressed returning religion to the public sphere and attacked lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights with a particular emphasis in this campaign on transgender individuals.
Moore repeatedly highlighted Trump’s decision to ban transgender people from the military. Yet the Pentagon confirmed Monday that it will begin accepting transgender troops Jan. 1, complying with a federal court order that overrules Trump’s pledge.
â–º Monday: Doug Jones enters Election Day after intense week of campaigning
â–º Monday: Charles Barkley in Alabama: ‘We’ve got to stop looking like idiots’
The race has proven closer than most recent Alabama campaigns, and Democrats spent this past weekend in a wide-ranging get-out-the-vote push through the state. The Jones campaign said in an email Monday that volunteers knocked on 80,000 doors during the weekend.
Moore made no public appearances between last Tuesday and Monday evening — he that he took his wife on a trip to West Point, N.Y. — and has relied on surrogates and conservative media to make his case for him.
Taken as a whole, the polls leading up to Election Day gave Moore a narrow lead over Jones though individual polls have shown wide fluctuations. The race likely will come down to these counties:
• Jefferson and Montgomery. In these large, Democratic-leaning counties whose major cities are Birmingham and Montgomery, Jones will have to run up the score to have any chance of winning Tuesday night.
• Mobile and Madison. These counties on the opposite sides of the state — their major cities are Mobile and Huntsville — tend to vote Republican. But when Moore ran for chief justice in 2012, they swung to Bob Vance, the Democratic chief justice nominee.
This year, Moore came in third in Madison in the Aug. 15 GOP primary and narrowly lost the county in the Sept. 26 GOP runoff. Both campaigns will want to pull these counties into their column; Jones may need both to have a shot.
• Houston County and the Wiregrass region. The five southeastern Alabama counties of Coffee, Dale, Geneva, Henry and Houston have long been a Moore stronghold and gave him large winning margins in the Sept. 26 runoff. Houston County, where Dothan is located, is the largest of these counties.
Moore held his final rally Monday night in Dale County’s Midland City and will need strong turnout throughout the region named for its native grasslands.
• Tuscaloosa County. Generally a Republican-leaning county, Tuscaloosa was another Vance county in 2012, and Jones made campaign stops there this year.
• Sumter and Greene counties. While Alabama’s heavily Democratic Black Belt, a region whose moniker refers to the area’s rich black topsoil, isn’t large in population, the counties of Sumter, whose county seat is Livingston, and Greene, whose county seat is Eutaw, saw higher-than-average turnout Aug. 15 and went heavily for Jones. Repeating that performance will help the Democrat.
Follow Brian Lyman on Twitter:Â @lyman_brian
Contributing: Associated Press.
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Brynn Anderson/AP
Roy Moore, the former Alabama Chief Justice, rides in on a horse named ?Sassy? to vote a the Gallant Volunteer Fire Department during the Alabama Senate race.
Former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, rides in on a horse named “Sassy” to vote a the Gallant Volunteer Fire Department, during the Alabama Senate race, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, in Gallant, Ala.Â
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