2017 Alabama Special Senate Election
On January 3, 2018, Democrat Gordon Douglas “Doug” Jones was sworn in as Alabama’s U.S. senator after defeating Republican Roy Moore in a special election held December 12, 2017. Jones’s victory flipped a U.S. Senate seat from Republican to Democrat in Alabama for the first time in a quarter century and marked the first Democratic victory in a statewide election since 2008. Running in a state carried decisively by Pres. Donald Trump in 2016, Jones won 49.9 percent of the vote to Moore’s 48.4 percent. His victory depended upon strong turnout in majority-Black counties, substantial support in urban centers, and gains among suburban and college-educated voters.
The special election was triggered by the resignation of sitting Republican senator Jeff Sessions on February 8, 2017, following his appointment as the 84th Attorney General of the United States in the Trump administration. Sessions’s departure opened a rare statewide contest in a political environment dominated by Republicans in recent decades. Since the late twentieth century, Alabama had undergone a dramatic partisan realignment, with Republicans consolidating power at the federal and state levels. Against this backdrop, the election drew national attention as an early test of partisan loyalties in the Trump era.
On February 9, Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Alabama attorney general Luther Strange to fill the vacancy until a special election could be held. The appointment attracted controversy, as Strange’s office had been investigating Bentley’s administration, prompting criticism that the appointment presented a conflict of interest. Bentley initially scheduled the election for 2018, but after Bentley resigned that April amid scandal related to an extramarital affair and misuse of state funds, Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey assumed office and moved the election forward to December 2017.
The Republican primary drew a crowded field that included Strange, U.S. Representative Morris “Mo” Brooks Jr., and Roy Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. In a runoff on September 26, 2017, Moore defeated Strange despite support for Strange from Pres. Trump and much of the Republican establishment, including Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader. Moore’s victory highlighted divisions within the Republican Party and the strength of anti-establishment conservatism in Alabama politics.
Polling initially suggested Moore was favored in the general election, but his campaign was disrupted in November 2017 when several women accused him of sexual misconduct, allegations first reported by the Washington Post and followed by extensive national coverage. Moore faced credible claims of initiating improper social contact and sexually assaulting women while they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. In response, numerous Republican leaders, including Alabama senator Richard Shelby, withdrew support and urged Moore to leave the race. Although national Republican support briefly wavered, Pres. Trump ultimately endorsed Moore, whose name could no longer be removed from the ballot at the time of the accusations.
As Moore’s campaign faltered, Jones mounted an aggressive late campaign focused on turnout and coalition-building. A former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Jones was widely known for prosecuting Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry for the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a record that figured prominently in his campaign. Jones emphasized healthcare, reproductive rights, and bipartisan moderation, while national Democratic figures, including former Pres. Barack Obama, lent support to the campaign.
Jones’s victory reflected both unusually high Black voter turnout and Republican underperformance in many regions of the state. Exit polling indicated Jones won approximately 96 percent of Black voters, who made up roughly one-quarter of the electorate. He also improved Democratic performance in metropolitan counties and affluent suburbs, particularly in Jefferson and Madison Counties and in suburban areas surrounding Birmingham, Jefferson County. Moore underperformed compared to Trump’s 2016 margins across much of north and central Alabama and lost support among some college-educated and suburban Republican voters. Jones also carried Lee County, home to Auburn University, and Tuscaloosa County, home to the University of Alabama, signaling notable Democratic gains among younger and educated voters.
Jones’s election reduced the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate to 51-49 and represented the only congressional special election in 2017 in which a party flipped a Senate seat. (It was the first time a Democrat won a statewide election in Alabama since 2008, when Lucy Baxley was elected president of the Public Service Commission.) Moore challenged the results but did not qualify for an automatic recount under Alabama law, which requires a margin of one-half of one percent or less; Jones won by approximately 1.6 percentage points. The election was widely interpreted as both a referendum on Moore’s candidacy and a demonstration of the electoral power of Black voters and cross-party suburban coalitions in Alabama. Though Jones would lose reelection in 2020 to former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, the 2017 special election remains a significant moment in the political history of modern Alabama.
