The Daily - Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017

Voters in Alabama have elected Doug Jones, a former prosecutor, to the Senate, rejecting the scandal-plagued Roy Moore and giving Democrats a rare victory in a staunchly conservative state. That cuts the Republican majority in the Senate to just one seat. Guest: Jonathan Martin, a national political correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Duration: 24m
Broadcast on: 13 Dec 2017
Audio Format: other

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Thank you for calling the Renaissance Hotel, it's Bahamé, Sissy. Hey, I'm trying to reach room 303. Jonathan Martin. Oh, right, give me one moment. Mr. Martin? Hey. Good morning. Jonathan, it's 12.02 a.m. on Wednesday morning. A few hours ago, Democrat Doug Jones was announced the winner in the Alabama special election. When is the last time that the state of Alabama elected a Democrat to the United States Senate? It was actually in 1992, his name was Richard C. Shelby. He is now the senior senator from Alabama, who happened to be a Republican. He'd changed parties and ran again in '94 as a Republican with the last time, but they elected a Democrat. Wasn't, in fact, a quarter of a century ago. Wow. Jonathan, how wild is it to you for Alabama to have elected a Democrat in this moment where the political divide is so vast? It's striking. This is one of the most Republican states in the country, the deeply partisan state. It's racially polarized. African Americans are almost entirely Democrats, and you'd have to guess about 75 percent of the population, the white population here, is Republican. So you've got the sort of two parties fractured along racial alliance. What happened tonight is that you saw a swing of a lot of white voters, a good chunk of them, moderate Republicans, who just didn't want to be embarrassed. They've known Roy Moore since well before the allegations from the women earlier this year. They have been not fond of him, shall we say, for years because they find him to be in the area and divisive. And I think what happened, Michael, is after these women emerged last month to accuse him of sexual misconduct, it was the last straw. In fact, no more was kind of a catch-all that Doug Jones, the Democrat, used to more than pour moderates and even some conservatives in this state to, for a moment at least, drop their partisan preference and support a Democrat. Would you just stand out here in this cold? I am.

Lovely. Jonathan, our colleague Jess Bidgood was down in Alabama today with you and talking to voters and she has this kind of fascinating exchange with a woman. So what's your name? Linda. Linda, what's your last name? Well, I don't want to be working. Are you sure? But doesn't want her name used because she feels like she is alone in Alabama in being someone who won't support Roy Moore. The thing is, I don't want my name in the paper because I'm probably voting differently than a lot of Alabama people are. What do you mean, "Oh, because you voted for Virginia?" Gotcha. Yeah. But I don't want to make my friends mad, you know. I don't even know how they're voting, but if we can talk with me, just giving you a limb. She's a white woman and didn't want to kind of confess that to people in her world. Does that feel to you like part of the story of this election? A lot of people quietly unable to stomach Roy Moore. Oh, yeah. I think that's a huge part of this story. The folks now wanted to be totally honest with a pollster or with a neighbor, certainly with a reporter from out of town.

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