Doug Jones didn't just defeat Roy Moore in Alabama's Senate race on Tuesday night—he administered the most crushing and embarrassing political blow of President Donald Trump's young presidency. Jones' win meant that Trump, who had endorsed Luther Strange in the Republican primary before backing Moore in the general election, threw his weight behind the losing candidate not once, but twice, in the Alabama race.
2. "Twitter thanks #BlackWomen for voting for Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama Senate election," per USA Today. Mary Bowerman writes,
According to CNN exit polls, Jones defeated Roy Moore with the help of nearly unanimous support from black voters, with 96% of black voters supporting the democratic candidate. On Twitter, the hashtag #BlackWomen began trending early Wednesday as people noted that CNN exit polls showed 98% of black women voters supported Jones.
3. Jason Linkins of NBC News is out this morning with a piece of analysis titled "Doug Jones' Alabama win can't distract from the lessons Democrats must learn" (subhead: "Not every Republican opponent in 2018 will be Roy Moore. Liberals need embrace the issues, and black voters"). He writes,
While Democrats will likely crow about their historic victory and give themselves over to some gloating at the president's expense, they'd be well served to climb down from the grandstands before the air up there gets too thin. Successive victories in Virginia and Alabama might well feel like momentum, but it's hard to point to this one as a sure sign of things to come. Surely, at a minimum, Democrats would prefer that, the next time they face a candidate as flawed as Moore, they'll win by a wider margin.
Linkins reminds us that,
During the campaign, nine women accused Moore of sexual misconduct—ranging from monstrous lechery to outright sexual assault—and some of the victims were in their mid-teens at the time of Moore's predations. ... It's equally important to remember that all of these ghastly accusations were bookended by Moore's past history of bigotry toward Muslims—who Moore declared to be unfit to serve in government—and the LGBT community, antipathy for women occupying elected office and, in the latter stages of his desperate campaign, some choice anti-Semitism by Moore's wife, Kayla.
4. The New York Daily News took this unsubtle approach with its front page this morning:
Bama bucks the perv! https://t.co/9ZaMFXw7aA
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 13, 2017
An early look at Wednesday's front... pic.twitter.com/HkiiBl4v0V
5. Meanwhile, the Montgomery Advertiser went with simplicity:
Montgomery Advertiser has the pithiest, most striking front page headline of the day pic.twitter.com/a07wfBB2dH
— Kevin Pang (@pang) December 13, 2017
6. Trump-favorite alt-right site Breitbart, whose executive chairman (and former Trump chief strategist who still has Trump's ear) Steve Bannon actively campaigned for Roy Moore, leads this morning with a piece by Jeff Poor headlined "Five Things That Went Wrong for Roy Moore." Curiously, it doesn't include Roy Moore being Roy Moore, but it does include subheads such as "Turnout was much higher than predicted" and "Not having a unified GOP mattered."
7. Speaking of not having a unified GOP, Meghan McCain, a self-described "Blonde Republican" (per her Twitter bio) and daughter of Arizona Senator John McCain, tweeted this last night:
Suck it, Bannon
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) December 13, 2017