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EDITORIAL: Alabama Senate results could foreshadow carnage for the GOP come November

In January 2010, Massachusetts voters went to the polls for a special election set to choose a successor to U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who had died the previous August. The Bay State was as reliably blue as they come; it had been 64 years since a Republican last won a Senate seat there.

The election became a referendum on Barack Obama and his controversial health care proposal. When the GOP’s Scott Brown prevailed in a close vote, shell-shocked Democrats were left searching for answers.

“We will be making a mistake if we believe that the message that was delivered in Massachusetts last night was unique to Massachusetts,” said Rep. Stony Hoyer, D-Md. “That anger was directed, frankly, at all of us.”

Exuberant Republicans carried the momentum into November, picking up six Senate seats and taking the lower chamber by adding 63 House districts.

But that was then, and this is now.

Almost eight years later, the script has flipped. Democrats on Tuesday won a special Senate election in Alabama, as Doug Jones defeated Roy Moore, 50 percent to 49 percent, in a state that has long been deep red. Mr. Jones will become the first Democrat to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate in 20 years.

And just as the 2010 Massachusetts special election foreshadowed big trouble for Democrats, Republicans now face the very real possibility that the Alabama debacle could presage carnage in November.

Yes, Roy Moore was a seriously flawed candidate, and it’s likely the allegations against him weighed more on Alabama voters than any dislike for Donald Trump. But GOP apologists who try to write this off as an aberration are kidding themselves.

“Moore’s loss puts into question a fundamental component of President Trump’s platform and base,” wrote former Democratic consultant Doug Schoen on Wednesday. “As the Republicans prepare for 2018, Moore’s loss worsens fractures within the party, creating an even more contentious relationship (between) the Republican establishment … and the far-right faction of the Republican Party.”

The challenge now confronting Mr. Trump is to understand that his one-man brand of politics — along with his social media fetish — has serious limitations and that his core followers aren’t numerous enough to prevent a Democratic rout in the upcoming midterms. The president should also re-evaluate his reliance on Steve Bannon’s destructive scorched-earth approach to GOP politics, which many voters clearly find exclusionary and intolerant.

Despite Tuesday’s results, the electoral map next year remains friendly for Republicans. Democrats must defend 25 of the 33 Senate seats on the ballot and need to pick up 24 House districts to regain control. Republicans unafraid to aggressively defend the principles of personal liberty and free markets will always attract significant support. But Doug Jones’s victory can’t be written off as a fluke and should trigger serious reflection in the White House.

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