How Doug Jones lost in nearly every congressional district but still won the state

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How Doug Jones lost nearly every congressional district but still won Alabama.

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How Doug Jones lost in nearly every congressional district but still won the state

By Christopher Ingraham December 13 at 2:55 PM

Preliminary Alabama election numbers crunched by J. Miles Coleman of Decision Desk HQ reveal something astonishing: Democrat Doug Jones lost in six of Alabama's seven congressional districts, but he still managed to beat Roy Moore by 1.5 percentage points in the entire state.

Voters in Alabama's 7th Congressional District opted for Jones by a whopping 78 percent to 21 percent margin, the most lopsided result in the state. But Jones lost everywhere else, usually by just a few percentage points.

The simple explanation for this is that nearly two thirds of voters the seventh district are African American, a group that overwhelmingly supported Jones in his contest with Roy Moore.

The 7th District is in fact home to nearly one-third of the state's entire black population. Having so many black voters in the 7th District means there are fewer black voters everywhere else.
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Christopher Ingraham writes about politics, drug policy and all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center. Follow @_cingraham