Alabama Democrat in shock Senate win over Trump-backed Republican

MONTGOMERY: Democrat Doug Jones scored a stunning upset victory Tuesday in an intense US Senate race in conservative Alabama, dealing a humiliating blow to President Donald Trump whose chosen candidate failed to overcome damaging accusations of sexual misconduct.

The Democratic win, a political earthquake in the most contentious US election of 2017 and in one of the reddest of Deep South US states, is a stinging blow to the president, who gave his full endorsement to Republican Roy Moore after initial hesitations, despite the serious allegations against him. With 100 percent of Alabama precincts reporting, Jones won 49.9 percent of the vote compared to Moore’s 48.4 percent, a margin of nearly 21,000 votes out of 1.3 million cast, according to figures posted by US media. Jones, 63, is a former federal prosecutor who shot to local prominence when he convicted members of the Ku Klux Klan who bombed a black church in the 1960s, killing four girls. The result puts an Alabama Democrat in the US Senate for the first time in a quarter century. “I am truly, truly overwhelmed,” Jones told ecstatic supporters at his election party in Birmingham, where aides and volunteers cheered and hugged. “We have shown the country the way that we can be unified.” Alabama, which Trump won last year by 28 points, has been at a “crossroads” before, and sometimes did not take the correct path forward, Jones said.