Stunning election victory as Democrat former prosecutor takes staunchly conservative Alabama over scandal-plagued Republican
DEMOCRAT Doug Jones scored a stunning win in the US Senate race in Alabama over his scandal-hit Republican rival — a hammer-blow to the White House who have blamed former strategist Steve Bannon.
The Democratic victory, a political earthquake in one of the reddest of Deep South US states, is a stinging blow to the president.
Donald Trump came out in full support of Republican Roy Moore despite senior party figures distancing themselves from him in light of allegations that he had made sexual advances on young teens.
He fired off a tweet to congratulate Jones on his "hard fought victory."
Trump said: "A win is a win. The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!"
But his pleasant tone masked what administration insiders said is deep anger at the strategy pursued by ex-adviser Bannon — the former aide and ultra-conservative media boss who was briefly Trump's right hand man in office.
A senior White House official told the that Trump is "really upset right now", while a Republican party strategist said last night "will be Steve Bannon's political epitaph."
Jones won 49.9 percent of the vote compared to Moore's 48.4 percent, a margin of nearly 21,000 votes out of 1.3 million cast, according to figures posted by US media.
But Moore himself refused to concede, declaring: "When the vote is this close, it is not over."
Jones, 63, is a former federal prosecutor who shot to local prominence when he convicted members of the Ku Klux Klan who bombed a black church in the 1960s, killing four girls.
The result puts an Alabama Democrat in the US Senate for the first time in 25 years.
"I am truly, truly overwhelmed," Jones told ecstatic supporters at his election party in Birmingham.
Alabama, which Trump won last year by 28 points, has been at a "crossroads" before, and sometimes did not take the correct path forward, Jones said. On Tuesday, "you took the right road."
Moore signalled he wanted a recount, but Alabama law provides for an automatic recount only if the margin is within half a percent. The current margin stands at 1.5 percent.
If no recount is ordered, Jones is expected to be seated in the US Senate in early January.
The loss by Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, shrinks the Republicans' Senate majority to 51 in the 100-seat chamber, and reduces Trump's margin for manoeuvre to the bare minimum.
It has been deemed a humiliating setback for Republicans as they struggle to move Trump's legislative agenda through Congress.
The Jones victory brought an avalanche of Democratic congratulations.
"Tonight, Alabama voters elected a senator who'll make them proud," tweeted Hillary Clinton, Trump's defeated presidential rival.
"And if Democrats can win in Alabama, we can — and must — compete everywhere."
Moore, 70, had wanted to bring his Christian religious activism to Washington.
But the tumultuous election was buffeted for the past month with the shock allegations by several women — first reported by The Washington Post one month ago — that Moore assaulted, molested or pursued several teenage girls.
One claimed she was sexually assaulted by Moore when she was 14 years old.
Had Moore won, the Republican brand risked being sullied by association with the judge.
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