Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones's surging campaign is in danger of falling short in its must-reach goal of energizing African-American voters, the Washington Post reported.
"As of this day, I would say no," retired UPS worker Donald Williams told the Post about enthusiasm among black voters. "And this is Doug Jones's problem. He's got to get out and get the voters energized."
Amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations that've rocked the campaign of GOP candidate Roy Moore, the Jones camp believes he could pull off an unlikely victory if he can mobilize African-American voters, who make up about a quarter of Alabama's electorate and tend to vote heavily Democratic.
"Right now, many African Americans do not know there is an election on December 12," Democratic State Sen. Hank Sanders told the Post.
The Post reported that Democrats working on the race believe Jones must secure more than 90 percent of the black vote while boosting black turnout to 25 to 30 percent — similar to levels that turned out for President Barack Obama.
He also needs to appeal to GOP voters with a more middle-of-the-road approach; Democratic strategists told the Post that Jones may have to win more than one-third of white voters to beat Moore.
"Turnout for a special election is a problem across the board, and we are putting as many resources as we can behind making people aware not only that there's an election, but with the opportunity that Doug Jones presents for Alabama," Giles Perkins, the chairman of the Jones campaign, told the Post.
Benard Simelton, the president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, told the Post his group is making phone calls to what he termed "sometimes voters" — those who tend to vote only in presidential elections.
But Simelton is concerned black turnout may not be as high as it needs to be for Jones.
"I hate to say it: A lot of people are apathetic about voting, because they don't think their vote counts," he told the Post.
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