If Doug Jones narrowly wins ...

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Discuss.

[CatoMinor]

It would take a perfect storm of events to allow him to win twice.

Such as Roy Moore running again, and purely to spite the establishment, Alabama GOP voters back him again.

[IceSpear]

Pure Tossup. It really depends on who the Rs nominate (if it's someone like Strange, Jones has little to worry about) and whether they learn their lessons from the 2017 defeat.

The only lesson they'd have to learn is not to nominate a pedophile.

[I’m not Stu]

Yes, if he caucuses with Republicans.

If he caucuses with the GOP he would be primaried out.

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

If Jones votes like a moderate, he could become entrenched in, potentially.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

No, but that's ok, I'll take a renta seat any day over Moore.

[Virginiá]

Saying that Jones can't win reelection before he has even taken the oath of office is jumping the gun, and quite frankly this has LA-GOV 2015 written all over it. IMO Jones is certainly less likely to lose than Gardner, maybe even Daines or Tillis depending on whether 2020 is a D wave or not.

I think the hardest part in states as partisan as Alabama is just getting them to take a chance on you in the first place. Once in office, it does seem possible to carve out a viable brand for themselves. It's worked in some other states for perpetual minority party candidates.

That being said, it still seems likely he would lose in 2020 until proven otherwise.

[MT Treasurer]

^I think Gardner's race is Likely D and NC is a Tossup. Yeah, Tillis may not be the best candidate, but Gardner is running in a state that's way more Democratic and also fairly inelastic. I wouldn't be surprised if Tillis pulled a Ron Johnson and Gardner got Kirked. Daines is obviously vulnerable as well, Bullock would make it a pure Tossup (maybe even Tilt/Lean D, although I wouldn't go that far yet), and there are other Democrats who could give Daines a run for his money. The Democratic bench in MT is still pretty strong and Daines doesn't have a lot of crossover appeal anyway (I'm pretty sure both he and Tester aren't nearly as popular as that weird Morning Consult poll suggests).

[Rookie Yinzer]

Not with Trump on the ballot. White people below the Mason Dixon don't do ticket splitting.

[Virginiá]

Not with Trump on the ballot. White people below the Mason Dixon don't do ticket splitting.

To be fair, they used to. In a big way at that.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Not with Trump on the ballot. White people below the Mason Dixon don't do ticket splitting.

To be fair, they used to. In a big way at that.

LOL yeah I forgot to put "anymore" at the end of that sentence.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Which Trump counties would he win in a toss-up, btw?

[Minnesota Mike]

Not a chance. Only question is if he would vote as a moderate/conservative in the Senate in a hopeless bid at re-election or if he DGAF and lets his inner liberal loose.

[Dr. MB]

Probably not unless somehow he turns out to be an amazing and popular Senator, but the loss of 1 seat in Alabama won't matter too much.

[Badger]

Probably not, even against a Luther strange level candidate so long as they don't get exposed as a serial child molester. Hell, even when it came out that more was running his Christian Foundation as a personal and family piggy bank, the polls barely nudged. Sadly, so long as they reiterate the words Christian conservative and Godless liberals often enough, the kind hearted but gullible fuzzy bear type of Voters inevitably come home 90% of the time. And an Alabama that's more than enough.

But will Democrats even care that much? If Jones wins they have at least a 50-50, if not slightly better than that chance of taking control of the Senate by winning Nevada and Arizona and keeping all their seats. If so, I sincerely doubt Jones losing reelection is going to cost Democrats the Senate as they'll likely pick up plenty of other seats to compensate unless either Trump somehow contrary to every indicator Under the Sun massively rebounds and popularity or even basic acceptance to most voters, or he's replaced by a slightly more palatable candidate like pants or be still my Beating Heart, Kasich, while the economy holds strong.

[Indy Texas]

I think it will just be a mirror image repeat of Scott Brown - upset special election victory, and then lose election to a full term in a presidential year (albeit by a narrower margin than would otherwise be expected).

Maybe he'll lose something like 46-53 in 2020.

[Devout Centrist]

Well it depends mostly on the state of the AL-GOP in 2020. Are they content to simply nominate some corrupt apparatchik and rest on their laurels or will they learn from 2017's brutal lessons?

[Skill and Chance]

Not a chance unless Moore is his GE opponent again.  If this were even MS or LA, he would have a chance, but AL is the very most conservative Deep South state.  He would be lucky to keep it within 10%, but Senate Dems should pick up Gardner's seat in Colorado just as easily, so it would even out.

I do think Dem upsets are now more likely to happen in the Deep South/Gulf Coast states where there is a large minority population and more and larger cities than in the inland South where they used to be able to hold onto the Blue Dog rural vote downballot.

[Webnicz]

I think jones would come out early and say he is not running for re-election. If that were to happen he could be more progressive than his current platform since he would not feel the need to appease conservatives.

This would also make him prime VP material when he's job hunting in the summer of 2020

[Holmes]

Maybe if Martha Roby is the nominee.

[I’m not Stu]

Maybe if Martha Roby is the nominee.

Roby would still clobber Jones.

[Nichlemn]

He'd be in worse shape than Scott Brown was. MA is a relatively elastic state according to 538, whereas Alabama is the second-least elastic state (and very inelastic in an absolute sense).

There just aren't very many swing voters or plausible ticket-splitters left in Alabama. Even if he voted like the most conservative Blue Dog ever (and it doesn't seem like he will, being pro-choice for one) and benefited from an incredibly Democratic national environment, it still probably wouldn't be enough. He'd need another opponent as radioactive as Moore to have a shot.

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Ridiculous. (I suppose if you think Dems are assured of winning 2020 by double digits, this might be true, but that's a dumb prediction in and of itself).

[Kingpoleon]

If the Democratic presidential nominee cracks ~40%, I could see Jones beating Ed Henry or Scott Dawson.

[ElectionsGuy]

No way, he would go down worse than Landrieu/Pryor.

[Lechasseur]

No way, he would go down worse than Landrieu/Pryor.