With Doug Jones, Alabama Democrats see potential for 'Mount Rushmore of political upsets'
The irony of Doug Jones winning the Democratic primary in Alabama's special Senate election on the same day that President Donald Trump was overwhelmingly criticized for making sympathetic statements toward white supremacists isn't lost on state Democrats.
To them, Jones' unique biography as the prosecutor of the two men responsible for the 1963 Sixteenth Church bombing which killed four girls and sparked nationwide outrage during the height of the Civil Rights movement, is "an antidote" to what occurred in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend.
"I think it's beyond irony," said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster for Anzalone Liszt Research in Montgomery. "So many people are disgusted by what they've seen play out in Charlottesville and most recently, out of Trump's White House press conference (on Tuesday). It might be the right moment for someone like that. It's the best time to tell that story."
But will that story lead to the unlikeliest of victories? State GOP strategists and longtime observers of Alabama politics have deep doubts about that. At least one Republican analyst says it's not worth the "oxygen" in discussing a Jones upset during the Dec. 12 general election.
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