Alabama Narrowly Elects a Democrat Over an Accused Child Molester Thanks to Black Voters

Accused pedophile and definite bigot and horse-ruiner Roy Moore will not advance to an Alabama Senate seat, because the Democratic candidate Doug Jones won the Alabama Special Election by a small but mighty margin!

Holy crap I’m relieved; let’s all take a second to be happy that for once (ok, for one in a meager handful of times) the pretty good thing happened, rather than the cataclysmic thing. Also, we are all no longer watching that goddamn election-predictor needle oscillate waywardly between the decent choice and the depraved one. Praise be.

The Guardian reported on Tuesday evening that Jones won by a margin of 49.5 to 48.9 percent with 91 percent of precincts reporting. With this tiny mandate, Jones becomes the first Democrat in a decade to secure statewide office in Alabama.

It is right to suggest that these election results represent (and further embolden) not only a repudiation of the Republican party in general, but also of the President in particular—who supported Moore unremittingly with increasing, perverse enthusiasm as more allegations surfaced against him—and, more widely, of victim-blaming, shaming, and disbelieving. Ms. Foundation for Women President and CEO Teresa C. Young spoke to this galvanizing, hopeful sentiment in a statement responding to the the Alabama Special Election, “We are proud of the people of Alabama for refusing to be represented by Roy Moore, and congratulate Doug Jones on the results of the special election….To the brave women who stood up and shared heartbreaking stories of the abuses they suffered as children: thank you for your courage.”

It’s also of critical importance to notice that exit polls are showing Jones won due to an overwhelming turnout of black voters who supported him. CNN’s exit poll found that black voters constituted a higher percentage of the electorate this year than in 2012 and 2008 (tonight it was 30 percent). And 96 percent of black voters supported Jones.

And then there’s the disturbing, shameful fact that, according to the Washington Post, 63 percent of white women voted for Moore, not so very different from the 72 percent of white men who did so as well.