Why Roy Moore’s Alabama election hopes matter to Trump

Alabama may have once been a sleepy, southern backwater but the Republican-leaning state has been catapulted into the spotlight by a special Senate election taking place today.

The vote is viewed as nothing less than a referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency, pitting Trump-backed Republican candidate Roy Moore against underdog Doug Jones. The Democratic challenger has also getting help from outside of the state, but has been rather more quiet about it.

The Republican strategy, meanwhile, has been to align Moore as closely as possible with Trump, which “raises the stakes for the president in the Alabama race”, says Reuters.

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Despite having Trump’s personal backing, Moore faces an uphill struggle after being accused of inappropriate conduct with teenage girls while in his 30s - including molesting a 14-year-old and assaulting a 16-year-old. He denies the allegations.

Moore’s opinions on homosexuality, Islam, and evolution - brash opinions not unlike the president’s - have come into sharp focus in the final days of the campaign. So, too, has Trump’s vocal support of the Republican front runner.

Commentators believe a Moore victory would embolden Trump, as he seeks primary candidates in his own image to challenge establishment GOP favorites in next year’s midterms. But if Moore stumbles, Trump will face doubts about his own political heft.

The race “encapsulates many of the forces convulsing American politics after the tumultuous first year of the Trump presidency” and has become “a testing ground of mobilising strategies ahead of the midterm elections”, says CNN’s Stephen Collinson.

Aiming for the moral high ground

Democrats are also heavily invested in the race, but their strategy is to downplay outside influence and instead focus on the candidate’s record.

Having purged the Democratic ranks of Senator Al Franken and congressman John Conyers - both facing sexual misconduct claims - Democrats hope their party is running on the moral high ground. A Jones victory would trim the GOP’s Senate majority to one seat, and improve the Democratic Party’s chances of an upset seizure of the chamber in 2018.

Montana Senator Jon Tester, who chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee during the last election cycle, told Business Insider that flipping an Alabama seat “would be huge” but that “it’s better to have a race run by home”.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has also downplayed the national party’s role in Alabama, telling reporters that “it’s an Alabama race”. Privately, Schumer has told allies that he believes the race is winnable as long as Democrats “take pains not to nationalise the contest”, says The New York Times.

That said, money to fund a Democratic win has been flowing into Alabama from afar. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Joe Donnelly and others sent fundraising emails to supporters on behalf of Jones in November, Business Insider reports. And the left-leaning California-based Daily Kos website collected $100,000 (£75,000) for Jones from 4,000 individual donors in just five days.