The New York Times suggested there would be two lessons from a Roy Moore victory: “It would illustrate the enduring limitations of Democrats in the South and suggest that the tug of partisanship is a forbiddingly powerful force.”
I don’t buy either takeaway, based on Alabama’s demographics and politicos I’ve talked to in the state.
One: Democrats’ limitations are exaggerated in this state. “Democrats have no real infrastructure in Alabama. Jones has to pretty much do it on his own,” Cameron Smith, a political columnist for AL.com and general counsel for the D.C.-based R Street Institute, told me recently. Look no further than Greg Sargent’s interview with Doug Jones strategist Joe Trippi, who claimed his team built “the biggest” turnout operation in Alabama’s history. “[B]ut it’s totally untested,” was the catch, Trippi said.
In my reporting on Jones’s candidacy last month, Alabama Democrats noted that their state party was a bit of a mess. (Yes, they were candid about it.) It’s been beset by racial divisions, leadership vacuums, and uncompetitive candidacies for major offices. Jones is at least an average Senate nominee: His avowed pro-choice stance on abortion is a glaring negative, for electoral purposes, but he has a good professional background, has been an active party member, is liked by fellow Democrats, and is affable on the campaign trail. For the standards of Alabama Democrats, that makes him FDR.
As a byproduct, the state party has rallied around Jones and developed a semblance of organization that was lacking only months ago. But their voters are far outnumbered by Republicans: Much more than they are in other red Southern states like neighboring Georgia and Louisiana. If Jones HQ were in Atlanta and not Birmingham, his chances of celebrating victory would be much higher. As it is, he has to overcome yet another unique obstacle in a region of the country that already is uniquely inhospitable to Democrats, particularly mainstream liberals like him.
Two: There is every reason to believe Jones will net a percentage Tuesday at least in the low-to-mid-40s. His Real Clear Politics average has him at 46 percent, to Moore’s 48. Given the race’s unpredictability—attributable both to the default nature of special elections and the bizarre candidacy of Moore—it may as well be a toss-up. So let’s take the Times’s assessment that if Jones ends up losing, it’ll indicate that the “tug of partisanship is a forbiddingly powerful force.”
The Cook Partisan Voting Index pegs Alabama as a Republican +14 state. Based on the most recent surveys, the GOP advantage in the Senate campaign is just +2. That’s a 12-point swing toward Democrats—which is gigantic. Jones needs it to swing a bit more still to win.
But let’s say it doesn’t. Would it be fair to blame the “tug of partisanship” for a small Jones loss? It’s not a compelling argument. Jones looks like he’ll outperform typical Democratic expectations by a ton on Tuesday, even if his night ends in defeat. If Alabama were only a marginal Republican state, there’s a better case a Moore win could be chalked up largely to GOP voters refusing to break ranks. But Alabama is a heavy Republican state—one of the most partisan in America. In such a case, the mountain may be too tall for the underdog to summit. Whether Jones wins by a few or loses by a few, he’ll have overcome a party disadvantage to a large degree to be competitive.
