Jordan Crenshaw was home-schooled in small-town Alabama. “You waved at people at stop signs,” she recalls. “Your community was very completely reflective of your church. It was a very conservative upbringing, politically and religiously.”



Crenshaw’s father voted for Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election. But when his fellow Republican Roy Moore, an accused paedophile, looked on course for victory in this week’s US Senate race in Alabama, Crenshaw turned to her husband and said: “Can we live here? Can we raise our children here?”

Thankfully it did not come to that. Moore suffered a stunning defeat by Doug Jones, the first Democrat to take a Senate seat in Alabama for a quarter of a century. At Jones’s watch party in the ballroom of a Birmingham hotel, the sense of joy, relief and release was palpable in hugs, tears and high-fives: it felt like the first time since November 2016 that America had broken the spell of Trump.

For many, the past year has served up what feels like a bruising, bewildering assault on institutions, decency and truth itself. When Trump endorsed Moore, a Christian fundamentalist accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls, it seemed the pit was bottomless. But here, in the unlikeliest of states, came resistance forged from a coalition of women, African Americans and university educated suburbanites – and millennials such as Crenshaw.

Next day, the 28-year-old was out celebrating with her fellow college admissions workers Amy Hayes and Jessica Rager at the Atomic Bar & Lounge, a trendy cocktail bar in downtown Birmingham featuring a Sgt Pepper-style collage and a giant image of the civil rights activist and local heroine Angelia Davis. They reflected on how Moore had hammered away at old conservative taboos such as abortion and homosexuality. For a new generation of Christians, such issues carry less weight than they once did.

From left to right: Jordan Crenshaw,28, Jessica Rager, 28 and Amy Hayes, 29. Photograph: David Smith/The Observer

“Growing up in an evangelical household, and feeling pulled in a different direction, wondering why my parents are supporting a conservative, I’ve always been fascinated by the disconnect,” Crenshaw said. “One of the things that first pulled me from me from conservative views to more progressive views was thinking: ‘Are we really making abortion the top priority? Can we talk about poverty in our state?’ When I saw that was becoming most of the rallying cry of the Republican party, instead of leading on a spread of issues, that was the start of the turn.”

Rager, 28, agreed: “I’m from Georgia and a lot of my friends are still pro-life but they don’t believe laws are the way to do it. They’re pro-taking action that will help reduce the need for abortions.”

I marched with my church in the Pride parade this year. To see such a group energised and excited is really cool Jordan Crenshaw

Since leaving home, getting married (to an atheist), finding a job and moving into her own home, Crenshaw has felt able to have more “open conversations” with her parents about politics. “They were born in Alabama but they’re now asking: should we go to a church that doesn’t support LGBT rights? I marched with my church in the Pride parade this year. To see such a group energised and excited is really cool.”

Hayes, 29, added: “My dad voted for Trump but this time he said: ‘I’m not going to do that to America again; I won’t be stubborn again.” He voted for Jones.

‘As millennials, we’ve made a conscious choice’

A disappointing performance among millennials was one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton lost to Trump last year. According to exit polls, Jones won voters aged 18 to 29 by 60% to 38%. This was a dramatic turnaround from the 2012 election, when Barack Obama lost Alabama voters aged 18 to 29 to Mitt Romney by four percentage points.

With the help of targeted text messages and digital advertising, Democrats enjoyed a particular surge in college areas. In Tuscaloosa County, home to the University of Alabama, Jones won with 57.2% of the vote – about 19 points better than Clinton managed. In Lee County, home of Auburn University, Jones took 57.4%, 21.5 points more than Clinton.

Issues such as abortion and gay marriage were losing purchase, said Jake Carnley, 27, founder of a candle shop in Birmingham. “This election showed they are fading. The propaganda machine has been able to hijack the conservative agenda by pretending these issues swing on elections when in fact they are already protected by the government. They suggest it’s still up in the air when it’s not.

“The priorities have definitely changed to the economy and, in this election, simple decency. As this administration gets more zany, people have to decide whether they’re at on decency and choose empathy or ignorance, empathy or issues that could really divide us. As millennials, we’ve made a conscious choice.”

Carnley added: “I think one reason we are able to choose empathy is that we know gay people and we know black people. We are locking arms with people in this fight and have real stakes in it and that’s perhaps something our parents and grandparents never had. For millennials, it’s about being able to put a face and a personality to an issue rather than just an idea.”

Neil Sroka, a millennial and political activist originally from Detroit, said: “We are having families now and buying homes. We are not college students any more. The parties are going to start recognising that. Doug Jones stood up for choice [on reproductive rights] – he won not in spite of that conviction but because of that conviction.”

Stung by the enthusiasm gap of 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was quick to claim credit for getting the youth vote out this time. Its chairman, Tom Perez, told a conference call: “We went to college campuses because we knew that Doug’s message would resonate with millennial voters.”

If you get outworked you’re going to lose and … their ability to get out votes, that’s what it comes down to Steve Bannon

The DNC revealed after the election that it ploughed nearly $1m into boosting millennial and African American voter turnout. It said this contributed to more than 1.32m phone calls, 325,000 doors knocked in the last seven weeks and more than 1m texts to volunteers and voters in across the state.

Even Steve Bannon, the Breitbart News executive chairman and former White House chief strategist who suffered humiliation after backing Moore, praised Democrats for their “ground game”. He told Breitbart News radio: “If you get outworked, you’re going to lose, and I’ve got to tell you, their ability to get out votes – that’s what it comes down to.”

But while Republicans looked for ways to stem the bleeding, there were lessons for Democrats too. Before this election, the party was divided, neglected and moribund in Alabama. Giles Perkins, Jones’s campaign chairman, said: “They don’t have a lot of infrastructure. We ran and funded our own campaign.”

There are reasons to believe that it was the Jones campaign, national progressive networks such as Indivisible and the Human Rights Campaign and, above all, hyperlocal grassroots activism that won the day, not the party central command. African American turnout is a prime example.

‘We knew that Doug’s message would resonate with millennial voters,’ said the Democratic National Committee chair. Photograph: David Smith/The Observer

Alabama was a crucible of the civil rights struggle and in a state where African Americans make up 26% of the population, they made up 29% of the electorate, according to exit polls – slightly more than the percentage of black voters in the state who turned out for Obama in 2012. They backed Jones by 96% to 4%, including 98% of African American women, whom Perez described as “the backbone of the Democratic party”.

But Charles Barkley, a former basketball star who is from Alabama, told CNN that Democrats “have taken the black vote and the poor vote for granted for a long time. They’ve always had our votes and they’ve abused our votes. It’s time for them to get off their ass. This is a wake up call for Democrats to do better for black people and poor white people.”

‘Black liberation by black people’

The turnout arguably owed much to three major grassroots organisations – Black Pac, Black Voters Matter and Woke Vote – that were all led by black women.

DeJuana Thompson, founder of Woke Vote, said it worked with black businesses, churches and universities and did not receive Democratic funding. Rather than just advertising in churches, the group organised 120 “face captains” who could interact with worshippers directly and reached an estimated 300,000 people. It worked on every historically black college and university in the state plus three more, an organiser on each campus backed by text messages and Facebook posts, committing more than 10,000 students to vote.

In addition, more than 270 canvassers knocked on more than 14,000 doors on the Sunday before the election, committing 6,000 voters on that day alone. The group made more than 100,000 phone calls and got more than million impressions on its Facebook account. One programme reached into prisons and gave at least 2,000 incarcerated people the opportunity to cast absentee ballots.

Thompson said: “If anybody is saying the grassroots strategy was not crucial to moving the vote, their eyes need to be opened. We have shown that when we show up, we deliver for the Democratic party.”

We built our programmes around the idea there could be black liberation by black people DeJuana Thompson, Woke Vote

Democratic operatives tended to parachute in late and with little awareness of local dynamics, she suggested. “There’s nothing stronger than a knock on the door, but I think the party misses the intentionality. If I’m from California and I knock on a door in Alabama and I don’t look like the person and don’t know anything about the community, that’s going to have a different feel from someone who’s local, or at least who’s from the south.

“We built our programmes around the idea there could be black liberation by black people. When we asked people at the door about black power, that’s what motivated them, rather than Doug Jones or Roy Moore. We went to some where people didn’t know there was an election.”

Woke Vote used social media to reinforce this narrative, Thompson said. “A lot of our digital content was people on the ground. They were seeing themselves on Facebook and in ads. Senator Cory Booker did come and Congressman John Lewis did make an ad, but 99% of the imagery was from the ground. It was our own people and that was impactful.”

The Democrats, often accused of taking black voters for granted, still have much work to do in future elections, she believes. “A lot of the time in communities the party turns up at the last minute. If you’re not speaking to local churches and local leaders, you don’t know. The party needs to put money in on the ground for the building of infrastructure and relationships and the projects that need to happen. Two or three weeks before an election doesn’t work.

“Is there a sentiment right now where black people feel they need to create their own structures to advance the interests of black and brown communities? Absolutely. I think it’s already happening. People should get ready.”

Jones supporters celebrate his victory on Tuesday. Photograph: Cahn/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Black Voters Matter raised enough money to deploy in 18 Alabama counties and make mini-grants to more 30 local community-based organisations to get out the vote, along with stipends for about 400 paid organisers. LaTosha Brown, the fund’s co-founder, said: “I saw articles saying the DNC put boots on the ground; that’s not what happened. At least they put some money into Alabama – they normally don’t – but a lot of it went to DC-based consulting firms and pretty mailings that did nothing.”

One mailing in particular was seen as unhelpful. It featured a picture of a black man twisting his face into a comical expression and sought to draw attention to Moore’s scandals by asking: “Think if a black man went after high school girls anyone would try to make him a senator?” Brown said: “The messaging was all wrong.”

Like Thompson, she argues that a deep appreciation of local subtleties is crucial for a political campaign. “In the south, culture will eat strategy for breakfast. We’ve got relationship capital on both the black and the white side. Don’t just utilise technology and flood the TV ads but also go from door to door and use the existing infrastructure. We saw that worked in the Obama campaigns.”

‘The party got lucky in Doug Jones’

Democracy for America, a liberal political action committee, raised and contributed more than $71,000 for the Jones campaign and mobilised thousands of members in Alabama to help with contributions, door-knocking, phone-banking and texting get-out-the-vote operations. Sroka, its communications director, shares local concerns and warned against Democratic complacency.

“The party got very lucky in having a candidate as strong as Doug Jones,” he said. “If Jones hadn’t run, there would have been no way we could have challenged Moore because there was no bench. We don’t have candidates that are battle-tested and a strong infrastructure that can be built on. Jones ran a smart campaign, but the real story of the election is how many black voters turned out and that was a result of grassroots organisations that were built up during the campaign.”

I think next time in Alabama they’re probably not going to put up the alleged child molester again Neil Sroka, Democracy for America

Jones also had the advantage of being up against a uniqely toxic candidate, an alleged sexual predator. Sroka added: “This is one of those instances where everything worked out in Jones’s favour. It wasn’t a matter of luck: everything had to be done perfectly and it was. But as a party, relying on perfection isn’t a winning strategy. I think next time in Alabama, they’re probably not going to put up the alleged child molester again.

“We’ve got to build robust infrastructure all across country that’s capable of winning races. The grassroots energy we’re seeing across the country gives us an opportunity to build that infrastructure. Historically, as a party, we have not invested enough in black and brown voters. This should be a tremendous wake-up call that if you invest in these communities, you can win.”

The upset in Alabama handed Trump and Bannon their most humiliating political defeat. The writing is on the wall for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections. The president’s approval rating continues to crater while progressives are motivated and organised in ways that mirror the rightwing tea party backlash against Obama in 2010.

Henry Olsen, a political analyst and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, described Alabama as “a perfect storm” with wider implications.

“It bodes very poorly for the GOP,” he said. “If Bannonism cannot win in Alabama, Bannonism cannot win anywhere. Unless there’s a dramatic course reversal, or events intervene, 2018 is going to be a wipeout for Republicans. It would be consistent with losing 30 seats in the House.”

Back in Birmingham, there was relief among liberals that, after decades in the wilderness with their state often seen as a byword for backwardness and object of derision, Alabama suddenly had something to shout about.

Hayes said: “Today, walking out of my house, standing in line at Starbucks, I felt the chills. Everybody is walking taller today in Birmingham.”

Crenshaw added: “We’ve got Harper Lee, Tallulah Bankhead and Condoleezza Rice. We can rock it when we want to.”