Alabama Special Election

Tomorrow is the big day, the Alabama special election that could send rootin’ tootin’ whackjob Roy Moore to the Senate. All the pundits say the election could go either way. Some indicators are looking good for Doug Jones. But Jones will need a strong showing from black voters, and Alabama has a genius for finding new ways around the 15th Amendment.

Polls are all over the place. Some show Moore ahead; some show Jones ahead. Nate Silver:

What we’re seeing in Alabama goes beyond the usual warnings about minding the margin of error, however. There’s a massive spread in results from poll to poll — with surveys on Monday morning showing everything from a 9-point lead for Moore to a 10-point advantage for Democrat Doug Jones — and they reflect two highly different approaches to polling.

Most polls of the state have been made using automated scripts (these are sometimes also called IVR or “robopolls”). These polls have generally shown Moore ahead and closing strongly toward the end of the campaign, such as the Emerson College poll on Monday that showed Moore leading by 9 points. Recent automated polls from Trafalgar Group, JMC Analytics and Polling, Gravis Marketing and Strategy Research have also shown Moore with the lead.

But when traditional, live-caller polls have weighed in — although these polls have been few and far between — they’ve shown a much different result.  Monmouth University survey released on Monday showed a tied race. Fox News’s final poll of the race, also released on Monday, showed Jones ahead by 10 percentage points. An earlier Fox News survey also had Jones comfortably ahead, while a Washington Post poll from late November had Jones up 3 points at a time when most other polls showed the race swinging back to Moore. And a poll conducted for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in mid-November — possibly released to the public in an effort to get Moore to withdraw from the race — also showed Jones well ahead.1

Silver goes into a long analysis of why the two methods come up with different results, but bottom line …

Because you’ve read so much detail about the polls, I don’t want to leave you without some characterization of the race. I still think Moore is favored, although not by much; Jones’s chances are probably somewhere in the same ballpark as Trump’s were of winning the Electoral College last November (about 30 percent).

Interesting data from WaPo:

White-collar folks who graduated from college are significantly more likely to defect from GOP candidate Roy Moore than blue-collar, non-college-educated people. The country club set cares far more about their state’s reputation and the effect it has on the business climate.

The Washington Post-Schar School poll published the weekend before last, which showed the race within the margin of error, found that Moore led Democratic candidate Doug Jones by 42 points among non-college-educated whites, 69 percent to 27 percent. Among college-educated whites, however, Moore led by just 4 points, 50 percent to 46 percent.

Among white non-college women, Moore led by 36 points. Among white women who graduated from college, Jones led by 15 points.

Business people fear the election of Moore will cost the state a proposed $1.6 billion Toyota-Mazda plant and other business opportunities. Yeah, probably. But Jones does have a shot.

11 thoughts on “Alabama Special Election

  1. My guess is that child-molester-supporters might be hesitant to admit their preference to a real person, which would mean that the automated polls are probably more accurate.

  2. Well, if he gets elected it won't be like he's the first pedophile to inhabit the halls of Congress. There was old Mark Foley before him. And as Christian rating of sins go, Foley was worse..I'm not certain about that, but it would seem to Christian reasoning, and evidenced by the Holy Spirit and the infallible word of God that a homosexual pedophile would be worse than a straight pedophile like Roy Moore appears to be.

     I hear that Dems have requested that the Sargeant -at -Arms draw up a security plan designed to protect the young congressional pages from possible molestation from Moore if he is seated. The logic is that an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

     I wonder if the Senate Chaplin knows how to perform an exorcisism? It wouldn't hurt, just as a safeguard, to cast any remnant of an unclean spirit that still might dwell in Moore into a swine or other cloven hoofed animal.  

  3. The FOX poll, which showed Jones ahead by 8-10 points, was, I'm pretty damn sure, monkeyed with to motivate Mr. & Mrs. Cracker to stop watching FOX long enough to get up off their ancient,  fat, diabetic lily-white asses, up the heartbeat in their congenitally diseased tickers, grab their walkers, and go vote against that Libtard Nigrah-loving fetus murderer, Jones. 

    I think Moore wins rather handily.  I think the same bigoted  "F'U!"  mentality towards liberals, Democrats, and progressives that put t-RUMPLE-THIN-sKKKin in the White (people's again) House, will prevail.

    I hope I'm wrong.

    But I just can't see Alabama with a Democratic Senator.  And, more importantly, I don't think the majority of voters there can see that either. 

     

     

  4. I expect Jones to lose, but hope he doesn’t.  A win would be excellent. Just tough turf to win on in a state that has taken as many steps as possible to make it tough, voting restrictions and all. 

  5. I'm hearing that there is a strong desire among Alabamans to shed the image of Alabama as being an ignorant backwater racist state. If that is true then Jones has a good chance of winning. But if you look at the numbers in ranking of  the poverty level, education level, per capita income level then maybe desire alone won't be enough to put Jones into a Senate seat.

    It's like the reality on the ground says a guy like Moore is better suited to the current needs and social conditions of Alabama. Maybe a 32 year old guy attempting to have sex with a 14 year old is not an aberrant behavior that state.  If Moore does win it will be a true reflection of Alabama values. He's been twice removed from public office…If that doesn't offer a clue about his faithfulness to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law above his own personal beliefs.

    To paraphrase Thomas Paine, and address the sickness that finds sanctuary in the minds of people like Roy Moore.. Once they have crossed the threshold of justification by righteousness there is no crime that they are not capable of committing. 

  6. Swami, I would say efforts to keep Moore out of malls when he was at his predatory peak would suggest that such behavior was more than just frowned upon in Alabama at that time.  I have heard the it was "OK in Alabama back then" excuse also, and find it generally bogus as it does not fit other information.  It sells to some I suppose.  The buyers might be they who have crossed the threshold of justification by righteousness.  I just could not wait to borrow that line.

    Another borrow that I must do is from Charles Blow.  Today we find out if the party name is Republican or Roypublican.  The bargain with the Devil is as obvious as the hypocrisy and the cloaking of evil with the illusion of Christianity. I see it as a lose-lose situation for the party by either name.  The choice for them is which loss is the lesser of the two.  

     

  7. To me, this just highlights the fact that millions of people in this country have been convinced to HATE the Democratic party, and perhaps all Democrats.  It's not just Jones, it's not just Alabama.  Millions hated Hillary, Obama, Bill, Nancy, Chuck, etc, and still do.  Why?  How did they come to think – no, feel – that way?

    It's easy for me to write lists of reasons – specific policy actions – why I hate the Republican Party and will never vote for any Republican again in my life, even in local elections.

    I'm really curious about what would be on the lists of the D-Haters.  I've tried to get some of them to be clear about that, but the answers are generally vague, and they usually turn the "conversation" around to some recent talking-point.

    My hypothesis is that they have been essentially brainwashed by the Right-Wing Propaganda Machine.  We progressives need to find better ways to counter that.

    It's interesting that Bernie is not on their Hate-List.  Is that only because Fox & Co haven't bothered to demonize him?  (or worse, promoted him because they could use him to undermine HRC?).  It's easy to imagine that they would have just turned the sewer-pipe on him if he had won the nomination; but what crap would they have flung at him?  Presumably they would have started with Red-Baiting, which could work on the old folks, but younger people don't know or care about Communists Who Just Want to Burn All Our Churches.

  8. Some Alabamians ( I got that from one) interviewed on NPR yesterday were just fine with Moore.  They chose not to believe the accusers on the grounds that they just did not believe them.  There was nothing factual or specific issue-oriented in their comments.  "Lots of things" was as specific as they got on why they supported Trump/Moore, and all of the interviewees but one suppported Moore as a help for Trump's programs.

     

  9. I heard that the robo-calls cannot call cellphones, and so these polls are the old folks with landlines, and they favor Moore. The in-your-face polls with live humans tell a different story.

    Even if Moore wins, he'll be the gift that keeps on giving to Democrats, says Lindsey Graham.

    OT, how about that Kirstin Gillibrand calling for an investigation into Trump's sexual predations? Great to see a lioness in the Senate stand up to the bully.

  10. Roy Moore is a gift to democrats. If he wins, he's going to make  a circus on the Senate to the degree that  Ted Cruz looks like a moderate. It won't change the minds of the faithful, but independents are leaning away from what the GOP has become. Most independents are still conservative by inclination – but they aren't inclined to buy into the extremism.

    If Doug wins, it will shake republicans in office to the core. If Doug pulls it off after the Virginia rout, all will know that the mid-terms might be a bloodbath. If they GOP passes tax cuts for the rich, a lot of independents will be unhappy (especially if they lose health insurance). If the GOP does NOT pass tax cuts, they end the year with ZERO wins. 

    Coming attractions: Mueller will continue into next year unless Trump fires him – which will solidify opposition among two-thirds of voters. If tax cuts fail, Trump will go to war with the GOP Congress thru the mid-terms – going after the only friends who count – the ones who will vote on impeachment. 

    I don't underestimate the power of the democrats in power and the DNC to screw things up – but the wheels are coming off the wagon for the GOP.

Comments are closed.