, Columnist
Black Voters Lead a Democratic Surge
With Obama gone, the big motivator is Trump.
Catching a wave?
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesWell before the Republican Roy Moore suffered his humiliating defeat last week in deep-red Alabama, Democrats had thought they saw a path to victory in the state's special Senate election.
Their strategy was to coax turnout among African-American voters to 25 percent of the electorate, with more than nine in 10 of those voters going for Democrat Doug Jones. The formula also envisioned Jones getting over a third of the white vote while an unusually high 3 percent of voters, including many Republicans dismayed by Moore, would cast write-in ballots.