Last Updated Dec 12, 2017 1:09 PM EST
Republican Roy Moore, the embattled former chief justice on the state’s supreme court, and Democrat Doug Jones, a widely respected former U.S. attorney, are running for Jeff Sessions old Senate seat today in a special election that’s being watched closely across the country.
Polls open at 8 a.m. ET and close at 8 p.m. ET. Polling in the race isn’t much of a predictor. It’s varied dramatically — as late as the eve of the election, one poll showed Moore up by 9 points, while another on the same day showed Jones up by 10. Higher turnout in the race would seem to benefit Jones, while lower turnout likely favors Moore. Alabama is a solidly Republican state, and the last time a Democrat won a Senate seat, it was 1992, and Richard Shelby, then a Democrat, later became a Republican.
Should Moore win, the balance of the Senate will remain the same, with 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats. Should Jones win, the GOP majority will shrink to 51-49. The winner must be certified by Dec. 22 by counties, and by Jan 3 by the state. If the Senate isn’t in session when the state certifies the results, the winner will not be seated until the Senate returns.
The last time Moore ran statewide, in 2012, he won only narrowly, trailing the rest of the Republican ticket by substantial margins. Since he won the Republican nomination for Senate in September, he’s faced numerous reports of sexual misconduct, including accusations that he molested a 14-year-old girl when he was 32.
His Democratic opponent, former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, is best known for successfully prosecuting two KKK members for a 1962 church bombing in Birmingham, and for sending Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph to jail. But he’s also a pro-abortion liberal Democrat in a state that tends to abhor abortion, liberals, and Democrats.
Their closing arguments Monday boiled down to this:
Jones: “I’m not going to be the senator that everybody in the state can agree with 100 percent of the time,” and he added, “They’ll know I’m somebody that will sit down with them. I will learn from them….I will try to be the public servant I think a U.S. senator ought to be.”
Moore: “If you don’t believe in my character, don’t vote for me.”
Live updates below:
12:30 p.m. Roy Moore and his wife, Kayla Moore, arrived at their polling place on horseback in Gallant, Ala., late Tuesday morning. They ride horses to each election in which Moore is a candidate.
Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore departs on horseback after he cast his ballot in Gallant, Alabama, U.S., December 12, 2017.
Carlo Allegri / REUTERS
9:15 a.m. Doug Jones cast his vote after 9 a.m. ET at Brookwood Baptist Church in Mountain Brook, Ala., a Birmingham suburb, and he also plans to greet voters outside various polling locations around Alabama. After the polls close, he’ll join supporters for an Election Night watch party in Birmingham. He told reporters afterward that he didn’t think Moore would win. In Alabama, there’s a saying, he said: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Alabama’s not going to let that shame happen again.”
Democratic Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones speaks with the media after casting his vote at Brookwood Baptist Church in Mountain Brook, Alabama, U.S. December 12, 2017.
Marvin Gentry / REUTERS
A little over an hour after polls opened, President Trump tweeted that the people of Alabama “will do the right thing,” and he attacked Democrat Doug Jones as “Pro-Abortion, weak on Crime, Military and Illegal Immigration, Bad for Gun Owners and Veterans and against the WALL.” He called Jones “a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet” and declared that “Roy Moore will always vote with us.”
© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
