2017 United States Senate special election in Alabama
The 2017 United States Senate special election in Alabama took place on December 12, 2017, in order for the winner to serve the remainder of the U.S. Senate term ending on January 3, 2021. A vacancy arose from Senator Jeff Sessions's February 8, 2017, resignation from the Senate. Sessions resigned his post to serve as the 84th U.S. attorney general. On February 9, 2017, Governor Robert J. Bentley appointed Luther Strange, the attorney general of Alabama, to fill the vacancy until a special election could take place. The special election was scheduled for December 12, 2017.
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| Turnout | 40.5% | ||||||||||||||||
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Jones: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% Moore: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% Tie: 40–50% 50% No data | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Alabama |
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| Government |
Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, won the Democratic primary election. Roy Moore, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, competed with Strange and U.S. Representative Mo Brooks in the August 15, 2017, Republican primary; the two highest vote-getters, Moore and Strange, advanced to a runoff. President Donald Trump supported Strange during the primary runoff, as did much of the Republican establishment in the Senate. Moore won the primary runoff on September 26, 2017.
Following the primaries, Moore was expected to easily win the general election. Polling showed him with a clear lead, and Alabama is known for its overwhelming support for Republicans. The race was upended in mid-November 2017, when multiple women alleged that Moore had made unwanted advances or sexually assaulted them when he was in his early thirties and they were in their teens (the youngest was 14 at the time), attracting widespread national media coverage of the election. As a result of these allegations, many national Republican leaders and office holders called for Moore to withdraw from the special election, rescinded their endorsements of him, and stopped funding his campaign. Trump and many Alabama Republicans reaffirmed their support. At the time of the revelations, it was too late to remove his name from the ballot.
On December 12, 2017, the Associated Press called the election for Jones; however, Moore refused to concede. Jones’ victory was widely labeled a major upset. He was sworn into office on January 3, 2018, becoming the first Democratic U.S. senator from Alabama since Howell Heflin left office in 1997. This is the only time Democrats won a statewide election in Alabama since 2008, when Lucy Baxley was elected President of the Alabama Public Service Commission.