Democrat Doug Moore Won Alabama and Twitter Is Thanking the Real Heroes—Black Women
I don’t think I ever could have guessed I’d be so deeply invested in an Alabama special election, but this is 2017. So last night I settled in to watch the results in the race for Jeff Sessions’ vacated Senate seat between Democrat Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore who has battled an onslaught of allegations of sexual misconduct with underage girls. When the allegations first emerged, many Republicans distanced themselves from Moore, but in recent weeks he regained the support of the RNC and President Donald Trump.
Polls were all over the place leading up to Tuesday, and many had resigned themselves to the fact that an alleged child molester was going to become a United States Senator. Then something happened—that New York Times needle that measures likelihood of winning (and is the most anxiety-inducing thing I’ve ever seen on the internet) started to shift toward Jones, with the major urban areas of Alabama (typically Democratic strongholds) yet to report.
The major news outlets started calling the election for Jones a little before 10:30 PM and while Moore is spouting off about a recount, the numbers don’t look to be in his favor.
In his victory speech, Jones made sure to thank the African-American community and he was so very right to do so, because they won him the election. According to Washington Post exit polling, 96% of African Americans supported Jones. By comparison, only 30% of white voters were Jones voters. Very quickly this graphic from the Post started making its way around social media.
PHOTO: Washington Post
As you can see, white women voted at an alarming rate for a alleged child molester, which is even more mind-boggling than the already hard-to-explain 53% who cast their ballots for Donald Trump, in spite of his misogynistic speech and sexual harassment allegations. It was the black community, especially women, who turned out—and turned this election. Many pundits will see this as a major turning point in the rejection of Trumpism heading into the 2018 midterms and all credit should go where it’s due.
Twitter totally agreed.
https://twitter.com/austinchanning/status/940798553898745857
White women, rightfully, did not fare so well:
Crucial lessons can be learned from Alabama as we head into 2018, so let’s please never forget how this election was won. And to my fellow white women: Please get it together. This is embarrassing.