Turnout model has Alabama Senate race all tied up

The results of the hard-fought race to fill the vacant seat from Alabama in the Senate will come down not just to charges of sexual misconduct but to voter turnout in a race that has drawn the national spotlight.

The latest Monmouth University poll produced three different models based on three types of turnout models, each with a different result.

Under a presidential-level turnout like 2016, Democrat Doug Jones holds a three-point lead, leading Moore 48 to 45. It would be highly unlikely to match a presidential turnout in a December of-year election.

If the electorate for the special election is more like a typical off-year election, Moore leads 48 to 44. But the Alabama Senate race this year was anything but typical.

Under a 2017 model – which pollsters then adjust for higher turnout in the county that includes Birmingham and 12 counties that form a belt across southern Alabama – the race is tied at 46, with write-in candidates getting 2 per cent.

The pollsters tweaked the model to make it resemble the much-watched Virginia governor’s race this year, which saw Democrats prevail. 

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones speaks during a rally Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Birmingham, Ala. Jones is facing Republican Roy Moore. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Republican Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the last to be elected as a Democrat in 1992 (he then switched parties), said he did not back Republican Moore and voted for a write-in candidate.

Turnout could spike both because of support and fervent opposition to Moore, as national figures from Trump to President Barack Obama and basketball star Charles Barkley and Trump strategist Steve Bannon revved up supporters in the final days of the race. 

‘If we see a surge in Democratic turnout, especially in the Birmingham region, Jones has a chance,’ said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. 

‘On the other hand, if turnout is significantly lower than a standard midterm election, Moore’s prospects increase.

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Former NBA player Charles Barkley speaks during a rally for Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Birmingham, Ala. Jones is facing Republican Roy Moore. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Former NBA player Charles Barkley speaks during a rally for Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Birmingham, Ala. Jones is facing Republican Roy Moore. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

He added: ‘In a typical year, we would probably default to the historical model, which shows Moore ahead. It could still end up that way, but both 2016 and 2017 suggest that typical models may not apply.’

The university’s 2017 model weights those Democratic-leaning counties to account for 27 per cent of the vote, rather than the typical 24-25 percent – boosted by Democratic opposition to Moore or decreased Republican enthusiasm for Moore in light of accusations against him.

Depending on who is making the case, Alabama’s special Senate election Tuesday is about either continuing the ‘Trump miracle’ in Washington or allowing ‘decency’ to prevail back home.

At the center is Roy Moore – ‘Judge Moore,’ to his supporters. The 70-year-old Republican was twice ousted as state Supreme Court chief justice after flouting federal law, and now he’s attempting a political resurrection amid accusations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s.

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon speaks in support of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore during a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon speaks in support of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore during a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

In Moore’s path is Democrat Doug Jones, 63, a former U.S. attorney best known for prosecuting two Ku Klux Klansmen who killed four black girls in a 1963 church bombing.

The winner will take the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Republicans hold a narrow 52-48 Senate majority. A routine election in Republican-dominated Alabama wouldn’t be expected to alter that balance, because Alabamians haven’t sent a Democrat to the upper chamber of Congress since 1992. President Donald Trump notched a 28-point win here in 2016 and remains popular in the state.

But Moore’s baggage leaves the outcome enough in doubt that both Trump and his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, have weighed in with last-minute robocalls trying to sway voters.

The intensity also has spawned a steady stream of fake news stories that fill social media feeds of interested people in Alabama and beyond. An Associated Press analysis, in cooperation with Facebook, counted as many as 200 false or misleading reports heading into the weekend. One website claimed one of the women who have accused Moore of sexual misconduct had recanted. She did not. Meanwhile, Moore’s detractors took to social media to claim he had written in a 2011 textbook that women shouldn’t hold elected office. He didn’t.

Actress Uzo Aduba speaks during a rally for Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Birmingham, Ala. Jones is facing Republican Roy Moore. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Actress Uzo Aduba speaks during a rally for Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Birmingham, Ala. Jones is facing Republican Roy Moore. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

In his final pitch before polls opened across the state at 7 a.m. CST Tuesday, Jones called the choice a ‘crossroads’ and asked that ‘decency’ prevail.

‘We’ve had this history in the past, going down the road that … has not been productive,’ Jones said. ‘We’ve lagged behind in industry. We’ve lagged behind in education. We’ve lagged behind in health care. It’s time we take the road that’s going to get us on the path to progress.’

At his own election eve rally, Moore again denied all the allegations, calling them ‘disgusting’ and offering voters a clear measure: ‘If you don’t believe in my character, don’t vote for me.’ Earlier in the day, Moore cast himself as the victim. ‘It’s just been hard, a hard campaign,’ he said.

For Alabama, the outcome could be defining.

Democrats and moderate Republicans see an opportunity to reject a politician who is already regular fodder for late-night television and enough of a curiosity that Chinese leader Xi Jinping paused a presidential meeting in Beijing recently to ask Trump through an interpreter, ‘Who is Roy Moore?’

Alabama’s senior senator, Richard Shelby, confirmed publicly that he wrote in a ‘distinguished Alabama Republican’ rather than vote for Moore.

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore holds up pages with a news story about himself as he speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore holds up pages with a news story about himself as he speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Many Republicans, however, see an opportunity to defend the state’s conservative, evangelical bent in the face of unfair liberal criticism while delivering another victory for Trump and sending an anti-establishment senator into a federal government that has been reflexively unpopular among Alabama majorities for generations.

Trump’s campaign architect and former White House adviser Steve Bannon told Moore supporters Monday evening that the race is a ‘national election’ that will determine whether the ‘Trump miracle’ continues. Moore says he is aligned with the president and he makes similar arguments to Trump, blasting ‘the elite’ in the ‘swamp’ of Washington, D.C.

For Jones to win, he must build an atypical coalition, maximizing turnout among African-American voters and white liberals who often don’t combine for more than 40 percent of the electorate, while coaxing votes from enough white Republicans who can’t pull the lever for Moore.

One of Jones’ celebrity backers framed the choice as being much less complicated.

‘I love Alabama,’ said Leeds native and former NBA basketball star Charles Barkley, ‘but at some point we’ve got to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘We’re not a bunch of damn idiots.”

Polls will close at 7 p.m. CST.



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