Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Alabama’s empty Senate seat has been on the offense this week, reaching out to the black community by going to a black church and by telling a black reporter that “when we had slavery” was “great” because “families where united.”
Moore, of course, is also a source of sexual controversy, having been accused of pedophilia, child molestation and sexual assault by a number of women.
Moore’s Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, has been criticized for not reaching out to the state’s black community.
He has often reminded voters that he was a prosecutor in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, but has said little about what he has done for civil rights or black people lately.
Now, with just days to go before the election, the Washington Post reports that that is set to change.
Jones is calling on some of his party’s biggest black names: Senator Corey Booker (NJ), Representative Terri Sewell (AL) and civil rights icon Representative John Lewis (GA) will be in Alabama this weekend to campaign on Jones’ behalf.
Some, however, believe this strategy is too little, too late.
Political analyst Jarrod Loadholt said that “campaign events with notable surrogates is not an effective African American outreach.”
Loadholt added that the Jones campaign has focused too much on Moore’s faults rather than Jones’ virtues.
“It is not enough to tell me why the other guy is bad,” Loadholt said, “We need affirmative messaging that tells what a vote for Doug Jones does for our communities.”
A Washington Post poll suggests that this last-minute outreach may not be necessary; the poll found that 90 percent of likely black voters support Jones, and that black voters make up more than 25 percent of Alabama’s electorate.
The real trick for Jones Alabama NAACP president Benard Simelton said, is making sure those black voters come out.
“I hate to say it,” Simelton said, “A lot of people are apathetic about voting, because they don’t think their vote counts.”
Should Jones want to win, Simelton said the candidate will have to make sure the people the NAACP chief calls “sometimes voters” come out.
That could be a problem for Jones, according to the Atlantic’s Vann Newkirk.
First, the state’s history of suppressing the black vote through intimidate and byzantine rules remains fresh in black voters’ minds.
Second, the state’s present voter ID laws could discourage black voters from coming to the polls. Newkirk said that the ID laws seem “to be more about discrimination than anything else.”
The special election for the Senate seat is on December 12. So this time next week, the country will know if it will be Senator Jones or Senator Moore headed to Capitol Hill.
