African American voters punched above their weight in this election and it was probably enough to make the difference.
African American Voters Made Doug Jones a U.S. Senator in Alabama
At first you might think that the difference between 26% and 28% isn't so much, but it's 2% and Jones' margin of victory was 1.5%. The NYT counts 1,344,406 total votes, and 2% of that would be 26,888. Jones' margin of victory was 20,715 and 98% of African Americans voted for Jones. So by showing up to the polls in larger numbers than their share of the population, they probably made the difference.
I'm sorry to say those are wrong and manipulations of the results.
Just the number of white women above 50 that wouldn't have the stomach to vote Moore and stayed home is certainly highly above those 26888 or 20715. Jones got a number of votes in the order Hillary did; Moore got a half of Trump's. Case closed. Still an abnormally high turnout for a special one-dude election? How about this: voters who wanted to vote against Republicans + voters who wanted to vote against a shady character (reinforcement) versus voters who wanted to vote against Democratic - voters who didn't want to vote for a shady character (self-compensating).
Besides, the mulatto-negroe electorate is approximately divided in 2% Republican, 75% Democratic and 23% independent. That's why in recent times an attractive Republican candidate could get up to 20% of votes within that population, while a positively unattractive like Moore got just 4%.
So "black" vote is not a cause here, but a consequence of being congruent.
A few days before the election, in other thread, I said that I was afraid that Moore would win by the skin of his teeth unless a certain number of write-ins prevented it. I had no way to estimate the real turnout among white voters: in opinion polls asking registered voters, 50% of them said that they would certainly vote, 10% that they very likely would and another 10% that they likely would. Half of them wouldn't do what they intended to do, so Jones winning was not as unlikely as the most serious pollsters showed.
Jones victory is an isolated event that leaves these teachings: both parties, but most of all Republicans, have to make an effort to reject shady, colourful, controversial, nothing-beyond-populist candidates in the screening of the primaries. The false democracy needs to be even falser and the establishments must do whatever necessary to avoid new Moores.
Also, the Democratic path to victory is made of young people. Forget the race: young folk has them all.
An this is by itself the whole point. Here are some roughly numbers behind the awful truth that made the Trump era possible:
[Data taken from exit poll paid by The Washington Post, and from the Bureau of Census for 2015 for Alabama]
Voters age 18-29: 13% of total voters
Voters age 65 or more: 23% of total voters
Inhabitants age 18-29: 16% of total (maybe a 10% of them are foreigners)
Inhabitants age 65+: 16% of total
I'll repeat it and continue to repeat it
non stop : there's no future for the United States if they can't bring a cultural change departing of making young people aware of them being the culprits of the current political situation. Should the status quo persist, prepare for Trump's second period, as he has eighteenth century laws, gerrymandering and a bovine population (both blue and red races) on his side (95% of the population is Trumpist -some in favour, some against-).
