Democratic Alabama Sen. Doug Jones defended his vote to remove President Trump from office by saying that “a lot” of voters in his state agree with his decision.
“There’s a lot of people in the state that are not going to agree with this, but, I’ve got to tell you, Lawrence, there’s going to be a lot of people that did,” Jones told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “There’s a lot of people in the state of Alabama who are not happy with the way things are, and they are not happy with this particular president.”
Jones went on to suggest that his faith in God inspired him to vote for Trump’s removal and that some voters in Alabama will react positively to that because they are also people of faith.
“I think people are going to be looking at our votes as votes of conscience,” he said. “You know, people in Alabama are people of faith. People of Alabama are people of conviction, and they like people that have a conscience, that do what they believe is the right thing, even if they don’t always agree with it.”
Trump was acquitted in the Senate on Wednesday of two articles of impeachment.
Jones’s vote was talked about during the trial due to the fact that Jones is a Democratic senator in a red state. The former prosecutor who was elected to the Senate in a special election to replace Jeff Sessions is facing reelection this November. Coincidentally, he is expected to face off against Jeff Sessions if the former senator makes it through the primary on March 3.
Polling released in December, before the impeachment vote took place, showed Sessions with a wide lead over Jones.
A poll conducted in Alabama a week before the Senate impeachment trial showed that 64% of voters in the state opposed removing Trump from office. Furthermore, 37% of voters said they would be less likely to vote for Jones if he voted to convict, compared to only 14% who said they would be more likely to vote for him.
Trump carried the state of Alabama by almost 30 points in the 2016 election.
