Alabama is a state in the Deep South that once had rock solid allegiance to the Democratic Party, but that allegiance has steadily declined over the past few decades: Republicans have continuously held the Governorship (with two exceptions) since 1986, and between 1996 and 2017, it elected two Republicans to the U.S. Senate. Furthermore, the last time it re-elected a Democratic Governor was in 1974, and the last time it re-elected a Democratic United States Senator was in 1990.

However, one party dominance can lead to complacency, which is what happened when President Trump chose former senator Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General in 2017. Senator Sessions’ appointed successor was not well received by Republican primary voters, and when he was defeated in the 2017 runoff, the eventual GOP nominee (Roy Moore) was both controversial and unable to expand beyond his devoted base of supporters. These events, combined with a Democratic candidate who was well positioned to benefit from the GOP fratricide, resulted in Democrat Doug Jones’ election in the December 2017 general election.

Senator Jones comes up for re-election next year, and JMC Analytics and Polling (unlike other pollsters who polled this race) decided to poll the general election environment instead, because (1) not many polls have been conducted showing Senator Jones’ strength/weakness against various Republican opponents, and (2) JMC was more interested in measuring voter attitudes about both President Trump and impeachment using the ENTIRE Alabama electorate, as opposed to just Republican primary voters.

There are two main takeaways from this poll (which can be viewed here): (1) While absolute majorities still support President Trump, his support has softened some relative to his 2016 numbers, and (2) Senator Doug Jones faces a challenging re-election.

JMC is also happy to announce that the Alabama poll is the first text poll (for reaching cellphone voters) that it has ever conducted, and believes that it is an additional polling method that can be used to ensure that its polls remain among the most accurate in the business.