December 15, 2017

Alabama’s White Voters Abandoned Roy Moore in Large Numbers

I’m curious about something, but first a caveat: data from exit polls isn’t always perfect. However, more reliable data from the ACS and ANES surveys aren’t available yet for the 2017 vote in Alabama. And that’s not all: exit polls aren’t even available for Alabama every year, since everyone knows who’s going to win there and it hardly seems worth it. Still, exit polls are all we have right now, and we do have exit polls from both the 2008 and 2017 Senate races:

There’s not much change except in one category: a whole lot of white voters who voted for Republican Jeff Sessions in 2008 decided to vote for Democrat Doug Jones in 2017.

Obviously Barack Obama was also on the ballot in 2008, and that makes a difference. At the same time, there doesn’t seem to be anything all that special about either black turnout or the huge share of the vote they gave Jones (98 percent vs. 90 percent for Vivian Davis Figures in 2008). The biggest difference appears to be in the large number of white voters who apparently couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Roy Moore and voted instead for the Democrat (30 percent vs. 11 percent for Figures in 2008).

Am I missing something here?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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