Doug Jones defeats Roy Moore for U.S. Senate seat

Dec. 13--Democratic Senate nominee Doug Jones narrowly won election to the U.S. Senate Tuesday night, riding an enthusiastic base and a major fundraising advantage to victory over former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

As of 10:30 p.m., Jones had taken 49.9 percent of the vote to Moore's 48.4 percent, with 99 percent in. More than 1.2 million Alabamians cast ballots in the race.

Jones is the first Democrat to win election to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in 25 years.

"This entire race has been about dignity and respect," Jones told an enthusiastic crowd in Birmingham. "This campaign has been about the rule of law. This campaign has been about common courtesy, decency, and making sure everyone in this state, regardless of which zip code you live in, is going to get a fair shake in life."

The Moore camp refused to concede and suggested they would seek a recount.

"We're not calling it yet," Moore campaign chairman Rich Hobson said shortly after 9:30 p.m. Hobson later led attendees in the hymn "Great is thy faithfulness."

Taking the stage at 10:30 p.m., Moore campaign chairman Bill Armistead said "not all the votes are in." Moore echoed that feeling.

"We've got to wait on God and let this process play out," he said.

Jones' margin late Tuesday night was 21,000 votes. The 1.5 percent margin of victory would not on its own trigger an automatic recount. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said in an interview on CNN that he did not expect a recount to change anything.

Alabama Republican Party chairwoman Terry Lathan strongly hinted in a statement that Moore should accept the result.

"While we are deeply disappointed in the extremely close U.S. Senate election results, with our candidate Judge Roy Moore, we respect the voting process given to us by our Founding Fathers," the statement said. We are grateful to the army of Republican volunteers who sacrificed their time to help during this most important race."

The historic victory put a seal on a race that drew the attention of the world after nine women accused Moore of assault, harassment or unwanted attention. Most of the stories dated from Moore's time as an assistant district attorney in Etowah County from 1977 to 1982.

Moore denies the charges and has accused media outlets and the Washington establishment of advancing the story. While Moore initially said he knew two women who said he pursued relationships with them, he later denied knowing any of his accusers.

The Jones campaign initially shied away from the accusation at first but later incorporated them into a campaign that otherwise hit mainstream Democratic issues, such as health care and job creation. The former U.S. attorney repeatedly emphasized his support for Medicare, Medicaid and renewal of the state's Children's Health Insurance Program, which Moore never committed to.

That appealed to Mary Adair of Prattville.

"I'm interested in my Social Security," she said. "I'm interested in health care. I'm old enough to get Medicare. A lot of people are not, and they can't afford to pay for high-priced insurance."

Moore ran a campaign much like his previous ones, with a strong emphasis on putting religion in the public sphere and attacks on LGBT rights. The former chief justice made a particular example of transgender individuals in the campaign, calling for their removal from the military. After the allegations against him surfaced, the Moore campaign and its associated political action campaigns attacked Jones over his support of abortion rights.

As always, Moore's supporters cheered those stands.

"I'm for taking care of unborn babies, however you want to put that, and I'm for closing up the borders and making it difficult for illegals to cross into our country. I believe Roy Moore will do both of those things," said Titus Stone of Alexander City.

But Moore's campaign proved unusually lethargic, with the candidate himself disappearing in the last week, appearing at just two events before election day. Jones crisscrossed the state and made multiple appearances daily, and even managed to organize two get-out-the-vote concerts on Saturday.

Jones also enjoyed a solid fundraising edge, bringing in more than $10 million in the last two months of the campaign, to Moore's $1.76 million. The money allowed Jones to air commercials throughout October and early November with almost no pushback.

Within minutes of the GOP loss, some national Republicans were starting to place blame.

"This is a brutal reminder that candidate quality matters regardless of where you are running,'' said Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund, a political action committee aligned with Sen. Mitch McConnell. "Not only did Steve Bannon cost us a critical Senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the country, but he also dragged the president of the United States into his fiasco."

The fund had redrawn support for Moore after the allegations. McConnell had called for Moore to bow out of the race.

DNC chair Tom Perez congratulated Jones.

"Doug Jones made history tonight," Perez said in a statement. "He won because his values are the values of the American people."

USA Today's Deborah Barfield Berry and staff writer Melissa Brown contributed to this report.

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