Alabama – don’t blame the whites

Like many folks, I was thrilled to see Roy Moore fail to win the Senate seat. Understandably, the next day many were trying figure out how it happened.  Interestingly, only 1 voter in 10 said that the accusations of child molestation were the most important factor in making their decision.   But 6 in 10 said these allegations were a factor in their decision making.  One of the most common memes to show up after the election was the following:

 

dirty meme

And the casual observer can be forgiven for thinking that this infographic says that whites in Alabama are happy to vote for a racist, pedophile to protect their attachment to abortion restrictions. Voter turn out was critical in this race, and despite it being a special election (which typically have much lower turn out than regular elections) blacks turned out at a higher level than the last presidential election.   And black voters overwhelmingly voted for Doug Jones carrying him to a statewide majority by over 20,000 votes.

But what did not happen, as the above graphic implies, was whites uniformly voted in favor of Roy Moore in a lopsided majority.  The below infographic gives more useful insights.

If you consider Alabama’s support of this xenophobic, homophobic judge who was twice disbarred from the bench by the federal government to be a problem, please do not blame all whites.  Instead, you should be blaming Evangelicals.  About 74% of Evangelicals did not vote in this recent election.   Had they voted in historic percentages (closer to 47% participating) Moore would be heading towards Washington and a Senate ethics investigation.  But of the Evangelicals who did, they voted overwhelmingly for Moore. In contrast, 74% of non-evangelical white women voted for Doug Jones.

In Alabama, it is much less about whiteness and much more about religion.