Alabama Megathread 4: A New Hope

[DINGO Joe]

Here's a few maps. The first 3 should be self-explanatory. The fourth map uses the benchmarks (margins) for each county that NYT put out yesterday afternoon for a very close race, and then compares the final margins in each county to that. It's worth noting that as a whole/statewide, NYT's benchmarks were quite good - and even held up well in most of the counties.

Green means Moore's margin was less than expected/Jones' was greater than expected.

Red means Moore's margin was greater than expected/Jones' was less than expected.

Some very clear patterns but not inherently tied to any partisan or racial patterns in the state:

Beyond race, education and age of white voters were clearly the deciding factor (if that sounds familiar then you may have noticed Virginia last month)

The counties with highest % of over 25 w/bachelor degree or higher:

Shelby 41.4
Madison 40.7
Lee 34.4
Montgomery 31.5
Jefferson 31.4
Baldwin 29.5
Tuscaloosa 29.4

Shelby, Madison, Lee, Jefferson and Tuscaloosa all had the biggest swings for Jones vs 2012.

The swing in Montgomery was minimal because it's black majority and already had a high anti-Moore vote in 2012 (also state capitals general have the highest rate of educated A-A voters)

The swing in Baldwin was almost non-existent probably because it's much older than the other educated counties with 20% of the population over 65 vs 15% or less in the other educated counties.  Baldwin is as much an extension of the Redneck Rivera as it is a bedroom of Mobile.  It's got a bunch of old crackers longing for the days of George Wallace.

The results in the counties around the east side of Jefferson are particularly striking

Shelby 41.4 degreed 12.4 A-A  Moore 55.7%  12.5 swing to Jones
St. Clair 16.1 and 9.5  Moore 70.4%  less than 1 pt sing to Jones
Blount  13.0 and 1.6   Moore 81.8%  9.5% swing to Howdy Dummy

I haven't tried to delve into the NY Times Benchmark, but I don't understand how Jones could be viewed as having underperformed in Shelby.  Shelby seems alot like the Chesterfield of Alabama.

Really the results look like Virginia, it's just that Virginia has more whites with higher education and fewer A-A voters.  Younger educated whites moving towards the Dems and older uneducated whites moving even further into drooling deplorable dotardage.

[DINGO Joe]

It seems that certain people can't accept that their side can possibly lose without it being cheating:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Anyone else hearing this? Anyone? Anything to this rumor? Can anyone confirm? Just reporting.

Doesn't Alabama have voter ID requirements?

I heard the Moore campaign gave a bunch of West Virginians meth to get them on buses to bolster Moore but it didn't work because they all died on the way.  Somebody should ask Moore where he hid the buses of dead West Virginians.

[DINGO Joe]

Here's a few maps. The first 3 should be self-explanatory. The fourth map uses the benchmarks (margins) for each county that NYT put out yesterday afternoon for a very close race, and then compares the final margins in each county to that. It's worth noting that as a whole/statewide, NYT's benchmarks were quite good - and even held up well in most of the counties.

Green means Moore's margin was less than expected/Jones' was greater than expected.

Red means Moore's margin was greater than expected/Jones' was less than expected.

Some very clear patterns but not inherently tied to any partisan or racial patterns in the state:

I still find the 2012 vs 2017 more interesting because there's a segment of rural low education white voters out there that didn't like Roy Moore's antics enough to vote against him in 2012, but throw in some child molesting and they swing towards Moore in 2017.  Maybe there is some kind of flag they can fly to show their pride in rallying around the diddler. 

[DINGO Joe]

Jones did better in North Alabama than I expected.

Among the yellow dogs along the Tennessee border. Hmmm.

Madison county has the highest rate of Whites with a college degree in the entire state.  There is actually some high tech stuff in Madison via NASA and military spending.  I wouldn't doubt if it actually has the highest % of non-southerners in the state too.  Some of that growth has probably bled out into Limestone and even Florence has a surprisingly high rate of college degree.  Maybe the TVA planted the seed for a higher educated workforce all those years ago.

[DINGO Joe]

Sweet home Alabama, where the skies are so blue

Neil Young wrote a couple of songs in the early 70s, Southern Man and Alabama, that were critical of the racist lynching ways of the South and the second song, obviously, singled out Alabama.

Lynyrd Skynyrd retorted in 1974 with Sweet Home Alabama which included these lyrics:

Well I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don't need him around anyhow

In 1980 Warren Zevon wrote a little vignette, Play it All Night Long, that imagined what Southern  country living was really like, as seen through a Southern Man drinking and playing Lynyrd Skynrd loud to try to forget his considerable troubles.  The first part of the lyrics are in my sig below.  Personally, I think Roy could have been Grandpa, Billy and Daddy in the song.

[DINGO Joe]

While the suburbs ignored trump's grab pussy tape and voted for him despite it, child molesting was a step too far.

In contrast in rural areas, that went even more right-wing because of trump doing it so its ok, said meh its fine.

I'm sure it has more to do with their descent into Trumptardism than actual support for pedophilia, but inks them and the horse they rode in on.

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/greggiroux/status/943237485743755264

#ALSen: In Morgan County (Decatur), Luther Strange 215 write-in votes, Mo Brooks 72, Nick Saban 8
(PDF): http://www.morgancountyprobate.com/media/28474/write-ins-us-senate-general-121217.pdf … Write-ins 2.2% of Morgan vote

Lee Busby got 152 votes in this county. Bozo "The Clown" got 2, Bugs Bunny with 1, Jeff Sessions with 3, "a competent conservative" with 1.

Apparently, Kingpoleon lives in this county, because Condi Rice got a vote.

So, will votes for Bozo go towards Roy Moore's total?

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/greggiroux/status/943237485743755264

#ALSen: In Morgan County (Decatur), Luther Strange 215 write-in votes, Mo Brooks 72, Nick Saban 8
(PDF): http://www.morgancountyprobate.com/media/28474/write-ins-us-senate-general-121217.pdf … Write-ins 2.2% of Morgan vote

Lee Busby got 152 votes in this county. Bozo "The Clown" got 2, Bugs Bunny with 1, Jeff Sessions with 3, "a competent conservative" with 1.

Apparently, Kingpoleon lives in this county, because Condi Rice got a vote.

BTW, Morgan county also posted their official results (including any provisional and late military votes).  Jones added 34 votes while Roy picked up 28 in a county that cast a little over 30,000 votes (and Roy won 62-35).  Again, can't tell if the 28 added to Roy's total included the Bozo votes or not.  Roy may have to go to court to get those votes.

[DINGO Joe]

Jones will end up winning by about 22,000 votes.  According to SOS there were 366 Overseas ballots and a little under 3000 accepted Provisional ballots to be added to the final total.  Jones has won the provisional in counties he lost (Decatur, Limestone, Calhoun, Baldwin)  and overwhelmingly won them in the "big" city counties--Madison 333 to 68 and Mobile 463 to 103.

So far, the best write ins I've seen have been  for Colon Powel and Your Mom.

[DINGO Joe]

I will see this man in hell, hang on while you can Moore, cuz u gonna be in fire and brimstone, the likes of which you have never seen before, whether it be 10 15 20 years, you aint got much left in you.

Maybe Satan is planning to retire and is grooming Moore as his successor?

When Ivanka said there is a special place in hell for people like Roy, I assumed it was just the Trump family way of announcing the location of their newest Trump towers.

[DINGO Joe]

I will see this man in hell, hang on while you can Moore, cuz u gonna be in fire and brimstone, the likes of which you have never seen before, whether it be 10 15 20 years, you aint got much left in you.

Maybe Satan is planning to retire and is grooming Moore as his successor?

Okay that is really disgusting.

Well, it's absurd, everybody knows it's Trump's job--gonna make hell great again. 

[DINGO Joe]

Doug Jones' final margin of victory was 21,924 votes, the Secretary of State's office said before the certification began. Official vote tally: Jones, 673,896, or 50 percent. Moore, 651,972, 48.3 percent and write-ins, 22,852, or 1.7 percent.

[DINGO Joe]

There were 18 write ins for Jones and 14 for Moore.  Not sure if they get added to the final totals or not.  I still think Roy should go to court and demand that write-ins for Bozo the clown be added to his total.

[DINGO Joe]

On election night, Roy Moore claimed that Military absentees would help him to win... they actually expanded Jones' victory margin.

It probably had more to do with there being more provisional ballots (lean very Democratic) and a smaller number of military ballots (lean Republican).

Maybe, but Moore's supporters cheered at the thought their precious military members would help him bridge a 20,000-vote gap.

Moore and his supporters have no clue when it comes to elections ...

It is mathematically impossible for an off-year Senate election to have enough military ballots to make up a 20.000 vote margin.

I even doubt there are 20.000 people from Alabama in the military who are stationed abroad (and 100% of them would have to vote and 100% of them would also have to vote for Moore).

Roy should have bussed them all in.  Would have taught the Dems a thing or two.

[DINGO Joe]

Roy should have bussed them all in.  Would have taught the Dems a thing or two.

To be fair, busing in voters from Iraq and Afghanistan is a much bigger logistical challenge than busing them in from Mississippi.

Well, maybe he could have used members of the Full House Fan Club of Mississippi to claim they were members of the military and now that I think of it, they probably should all ride horses instead of buses, but it's not my job to sort out these logistics, it was Roy's and he failed.

[DINGO Joe]

Several counties refused to count write-ins for fictional characters and Bibb County refused to count votes for:

Honesty and Integrity
Both are an embarrassment
Jesus Christ

[DINGO Joe]

Interesting side-fact:

There were ca. 5.400 ballots left to count after election day (some 400 military absentees and 5.000 provisional ballots).

About 4.400 of them were counted as valid. Jones won them by 63-35-2, which is why his overall winning margin increased a bit.

There was an election night box in Calhoun that didn't get added until the next day which made the final election night totals 671727  651102  22814

That makes the provisional/overseas 2169 870 38 for a 70-28-1 margin 

The total of 3077 p/o ballots is a little under what the SoS had expected to be reported (2888 Prov and 366 Over) so it's possible/probable that there were some minor corrections made in the election night numbers vs official numbers.

[DINGO Joe]

Roy Moore's Jewish lawyer voted for Doug Jones, raised money for his campaign

Turns out that wasn't Roy Moore's Jew lawyer, it was this guy



Who's been a Christian for 40 years, but calls himself a Messanic Jew because fundies like that kind of thing.  His entire biography is exactly what you'd expect from a Roy Moore "Jew".

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/roy_moores_wife_reveals_their.html#incart_river_home_pop