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Key Takeaways From Doug Jones’s Alabama Victory - The New York Times

posted onDecember 13, 2017
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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — Doug Jones’s defeat of Roy S. Moore in Tuesday’s bitterly fought special Senate election was one of the most unlikely upsets in recent campaign history. But the Democrats’ victory in Alabama carries some more immediate political implications. Voters in Alabama’s cities and most affluent suburbs overwhelmingly rejected Mr. Moore’s candidacy, an ominous sign for Republicans on the ballot next year in upscale districts. In Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham and some of the state’s wealthiest enclaves, Mr. Jones, the Democratic candidate, captured more than 68 percent of the vote. And in Madison County, home to Huntsville and a large NASA facility, Mr. Jones won 57 percent of the vote. While these Alabamians, many of them women, may have been appalled by the claims of sexual misconduct against Mr. Moore, results like these were not isolated to this race. They mirrored returns in last month’s statewide and legislative races in Virginia, a state filled with well-heeled suburbanites. These highly educated and high-income voters, while often open to supporting Republicans, are uneasy with the hard-edged politics of President Trump and part of the reason his approval ratings are so dismal. If Republican candidates facing well-off voters next year do not find a way to separate themselves from the president, they will face a punishing midterm election next year. Democrats struggled for years, under President Barack Obama, to turn out African-American v... Link to the full article to read more

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