Four factors in the Alabama Senate election

In a “major upset,” Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore in yesterday’s Senate election in Alabama. This was the fiftieth Senate special election in my lifetime. None has been remotely as controversial as this campaign.

The Denison Forum is nonpartisan and does not endorse or oppose political candidates. As a result, my intention today is not to support or criticize the candidates or their parties. Rather, it is to explore the cultural significance of the election in the context of biblical truth.

It seems to me that four factors influenced the outcome. I predict that these same factors will continue to be relevant to American elections for the foreseeable future.

One: Personal qualifications

Doug Jones has been working for civil rights and reconciliation since high school. He served as an assistant US attorney and private lawyer before being appointed US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama by President Clinton in 1997. As a result of his work in racial reconciliation, he received 96 percent of the African American vote in yesterday’s election.

Roy Moore graduated from West Point and served in Vietnam. He was elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2000 but was removed in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument he installed in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. He was reelected in 2012 but was charged with violations of legal ethics in 2016 and suspended; he retired the next year.

In recent months, he faced allegations of sexual impropriety from at least eight women. These allegations apparently played a role in Jones’s upset victory, the first time Alabama has elected a Democrat to the Senate in twenty-five years.

As supporters of both candidates would agree, personal qualifications are obviously significant for elective office. Just as an overseer must be qualified for leadership (1 Timothy 3:1-7), so a political leader should be qualified to serve.

Two: Political positions

A…