Doug Jones Explains How to Win in the South
The Mother Jones Podcast
Mother Jones
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
In a nail-biting Alabama special election in 2017 to fill the Senate seat formerly held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Doug Jones made history when he narrowly won against former state Supreme Court justice Roy Moore, who was accused of sexual misconduct, to become the state's first Democrat elected to the US Senate in 25 years.
Jones’ improbable victory was celebrated nationally by Democrats because it represented a powerful, rare opportunity—the potential for Democrats to regain a foothold in the Deep South.
The freshman senator has been in Congress for a little over a year, during which time he has served on committees that shape policy affecting senior citizens, health care, banking, and defense. He's kept a relatively low profile, particularly in comparison to more vocal freshmen like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her cohort, but he tells Mother Jones that's just not his nature.Â
Jones, who plans to run for reelection next year, spoke with the Mother Jones Podcast earlier this month about what he’s learned since taking office and how the Dems can turn the tide in the South.
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Mother Jones Podcast. I'm Jemila King in San Francisco. |
| 0:05.0 | On today's show, on today's show, we love to bring you interviews with people we find interesting. |
| 0:19.2 | Folks who shake up the normal ways of doing things, who rewrite expectations, who surprise us. |
| 0:26.4 | I just had the privilege of speaking with someone who did just that, a dramatic political |
| 0:31.8 | upset in a deep red state. |
| 0:34.8 | Now that he's had some time to study Washington, D.C. |
| 0:37.7 | up close as the first Democratic senator |
| 0:40.5 | to represent Alabama in a generation. Can Doug Jones provide other Southern |
| 0:45.6 | Democrats with a winning template for 2020? That's all ahead. Stick around. There are political surprises. |
| 1:01.1 | We have a major projection right now. |
| 1:04.0 | And then their political upsets. |
| 1:06.3 | And CNN projects Doug Jones, the Democrat. |
| 1:09.3 | He will be the next United States Senator from Alabama. |
| 1:12.6 | Alabama Senator Doug Jones pulled off a nail-biting win |
| 1:16.3 | to become Alabama's first Democrat. |
| 1:18.6 | In a quarter century, to be elected to the United States Senate. |
| 1:22.6 | This is a dramatic Democratic upset in deep red Alabama and it cuts the GOP Senate |
| 1:28.6 | majority from 52 to 51. |
| 1:31.4 | After he defeated longtime Republican politician Roy Moore in a special election in 2017. |
| 1:38.0 | Donald Trump, of course, went all in for Roy Moore at the time. |
| 1:41.8 | This is a loss for the president |
| 1:43.5 | because he came out so overtly for Roy Moore. |
... |
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