In Alabama, Republican women split sharply over Roy Moore
DECEMBER 5, 2017 MOUNTAIN BROOK, ALA. —When voters head to the polls next week in Alabama’s high-stakes Senate race, one question will be key: Will suburban Republican women stick with their party’s chosen candidate, Roy Moore, who has been accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s?
Female voters in well-to-do suburbs like Mountain Brook, outside of Birmingham, could make the difference in the Dec. 12 special election that’s too close – and too unusual – to call, observers say. Normally, Alabama is reliably Republican. It put Donald Trump over the top by 28 points last year.
But this is not a normal election. It features a GOP candidate who would face an immediate Senate ethics investigation if elected, and a Democrat who is vastly outspending his competitor and polling remarkably well. And although the campaign has been front-page news here, voters will be heading to the polls at a time when many are busy preparing for the Christmas holidays.
“It’s the urban-suburban vote that’s going to make the race,” says Gerald Johnson, a longtime observer of Alabama politics and former director of the Capital Survey Research Center.
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/1205/In-Alabama-Republican-women-split-sharply-over-Roy-Moore