TALLADEGA, Ala. — Donald Trump is beloved in Alabama: It’s the state that hosted his first major political rally as a presidential candidate, then voted for him by a nearly 30-point margin.

But the state’s freshman Democratic senator, Doug Jones, couldn’t seem to care less. Easily the most vulnerable Senate incumbent on the ballot next year, Jones is talking and voting as if he’s totally unburdened by the fact he represents one of the most conservative states in the nation.


Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court? Jones said Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey Ford was "credible and courageous" and voted against the judge. The president’s border wall? Jones is “happy to defend” voting against Trump's national emergency using military funds to build it. As for impeachment? The senator is plainly troubled by the president’s conduct and sounds open to the possibility of voting to oust him.

“It is hard to argue that the president is doing anything at this point other than leveraging his office as the commander in chief of the greatest nation on earth with a lesser country to try to extract a promise from them to do something that’s going to help his political campaign,” Jones told POLITICO in an interview, when asked about Democrats’ ongoing impeachment investigation.

Jones acknowledges he’s an underdog to win a full term, but he rejects the conventional wisdom that Alabama’s conservative tilt and his record of siding with his party on the biggest votes make him a dead man walking in 2020. He chafes at the implication he doesn’t represent Alabama values because he’s an unabashed Democrat.

“Anybody that opposes me, their overriding concern is going to be simply Donald Trump. Whatever he wants, they’re going to say, ‘How high do you want me to jump, sir?’” said Jones, a genial 65-year-old who speaks with a quick and sometimes raspy southern drawl.

“If they want somebody that’s got their back, then I’m going to be that candidate more than any of the others in this field.” Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.)

“If somebody wants to base their decision on one or two votes, so be it,” Jones added. “But if they want somebody that’s got their back, then I’m going to be that candidate more than any of the others in this field.”


Jones' race is one of a handful most likely to decide which party controls the Senate after the 2020 elections. Republicans see the seat as rightfully theirs and want it back as a buffer for their majority, which is in jeopardy next fall. Democrats, who are hoping to flip control, need to net three seats if they also win the presidency — a number that increases to four if Jones loses.

With only three years to build a record, Jones is operating at a breakneck pace. In one day during the most recent recess, he started with a 6:45 a.m. rotary club breakfast just outside Birmingham before trucking nearly four hours to Mobile for a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in a glitzy downtown hotel. That was followed by a health care fair near the gulf and a town hall to finish the day.

At each stop, Jones ran speedily through his work: serving on the Armed Services Committee, successfully changing the Medicare reimbursement rate, writing legislation to simplify student aid forms, pushing to get the state to expand Medicaid and opposing the president’s tariffs, among a handful of other issues. He always mentions that most of his staff have Alabama ties.


But before taking questions at each event, Jones dug into what he called the “big topic” in Washington: impeachment.

He called Trump’s action asking the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son “very, very disturbing” but also said he wants to give Trump the benefit of the doubt until he sees all evidence ahead of a Senate trial. He called the White House letter to House Democrats vowing to block cooperation with the investigation “one of the most ridiculous pieces of correspondence that I’ve ever seen in my life” and said with anger, “This is not a witch hunt. It’s not a kangaroo court.” He declined to call Trump’s actions an impeachable offense, but didn’t shy away from criticizing them.

Jones is close with Biden and backs his presidential bid, but he declined to discuss how the former vice president was handling the situation. On Hunter Biden’s role with the Ukrainian company, he said the “appearance does not look good” but added that it “probably pales in comparison to what the Trump family is doing right now.”

His opponents have jumped on impeachment, attempting to make what is already a politically perilous situation even more painful for Jones. The Alabama GOP held a press conference earlier this month saying it would hold him accountable for voting against the president. Rep. Bradley Byrne, one of Jones’ potential opponents, compared it to the Kavanaugh vote and said he thinks Jones is “predisposed to vote against President Trump.”

After dealing with impeachment at the top of his town hall, he got no questions on it — though he faced a relatively friendly audience of five dozen people, nearly all of whom applauded when he answered the first question by confidently saying he’d win a full term in the Senate.

His toughest questions were from his own side: One woman in a Bernie Sanders shirt, who said she backs him even though he isn’t progressive enough, asked about corporations paying more taxes to alleviate student loan debt (Jones said he doesn’t link the two together, and dismissed the idea of a wealth tax); and a man later vented about the state of the Democratic Party in Alabama. The state party is in shambles, and Jones and other Democrats are publicly feuding with the state party chair in an effort to enact changes.

Republicans are convinced that wherever impeachment lands, Jones has given them plenty of ammo to defeat him. But the GOP has to worry about a crowded field that includes Roy Moore, the defrocked former judge who lost to Jones after facing credible allegations of sexual misconduct from decades ago. Moore says the race was “basically stolen” and plans to run a similar anti-establishment campaign.

Even with Moore in the race, the current GOP frontrunners are Byrne, who argues his background is well known from his congressional races and a previous unsuccessful run for governor, and Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach, who has led early polls and earned a key endorsement from the Alabama Farmers Federation political arm. Also running: Secretary of State John Merrill, who has the advantage of having won statewide before, and Arnold Mooney, a state representative already running TV commercials aimed at evangelical voters, an effort to crack into Moore’s base of support.

The GOP has to worry about a crowded field that includes Roy Moore, the defrocked former judge who lost to Sen. Doug Jones after facing credible allegations of sexual misconduct from decades ago.

A divisive primary could help Jones: He has $5 million in the bank, nearly as much as all five of his opponents combined.


Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he is “highly confident” the GOP will flip Alabama next fall, and that Republicans will nominate someone who can win. When Jones was first elected in 2017, many Republicans expected him to side with them on some big-ticket issues to earn some crossover voter support.

"Some of his votes have kind of surprised me purely from a standpoint of political survival,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of GOP leadership. “I think he realizes he was extraordinarily lucky last time, and his luck may not continue."

Jones dismisses the idea that he should have triangulated more. Asked why he hadn’t, he popped his finger in his mouth and mimed putting it into the wind to mock the idea of voting on political whims, and dissed the media for expecting him to do so. Interviews with several Democratic senators revealed a level of admiration for his approach.

“I think on some level it's freeing to know they're going to attack you no matter what you do," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). "Because then you might as well just do the right thing."

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the Senate Democrat who has crossed party lines most, plans to campaign with Jones soon, potentially on a football Saturday — Manchin is close friends with Nick Saban, Alabama’s football coach, who endorsed Manchin last year but stays neutral in in-state races.

“The bottom line is it’s all about Alabama,” Manchin said. “That’s all Doug talks about. It’s all he cares about.”

Rep. Terri Sewell, the only other Democrat in the state's delegation, said even his vote against Kavanaugh had an upside: He energized his Democratic base, which he needs to turn out at record levels.

"I think he is living up to what he thinks are the values that most Alabamians cherish," Sewell said.


Jones admitted that in looking at the current top of the presidential primary, Sanders or Elizabeth Warren as the nominee would make his reelection considerably tougher, forcing him to work harder to separate himself. He’s committed to supporting the Democratic nominee but said he’d voice disagreements on things like the Green New Deal and "Medicare for All." But he also said he thinks Trump is weaker now than in 2016, saying the president has a lot of “soft support,” and that Democrats will be “more competitive” in 2020.

He’s hedged his message to work for either result: He says Trump would need Democrats willing to cross lines if he wins a second term, but that Alabamians would want a moderating force in the Senate to pull the Democrats to the middle if their party takes back the White House.

Jones said people “damn sure” underestimated his chances in 2017, and that he gets frustrated with those who already write him off this time around.

“I’ll only change that perception once I give my victory speech again, like I did the last time,” Jones said. “I changed it for 24 hours, then all of the sudden all the pundits said, '[He's the] most vulnerable Democrat in 2020.’ When I win in 2020, I’ll be the most vulnerable Democrat in 2026. That’s just the way it is. Alabama is not going to change that quickly, and it may never change to a point where a Democrat is seen other than as an underdog. And that’s fine.”