Politics Briefing: Democrat wins unlikely victory in Alabama

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Good morning,

The Democrat has won and the Republican has lost in Alabama, one of the most conservative states in the U.S. Doug Jones eked out a narrow victory over Roy Moore — 49.9 per cent to 48.4 per cent, with over 20,000 write-in votes. The race pitted Mr. Jones, a prosecutor who was best known for jailing Klansmen who had murdered four African-American girls with a bomb at a church, against Mr. Moore, who was accused of sexually abusing minors. In previous years, Mr. Moore also said that homosexuals should be outlawed, that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress and recently said that America was last "great" when slavery was still legal.

How did Mr. Jones win? According to preliminary exit poll data, he was pushed to victory by black voters (96 per cent voted for him) while 68 per cent of white voters chose Mr. Moore at the ballot box. White voters with college degrees and without voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Moore and both white women and men voted for Mr. Moore. There was also a significant age gap at play: Around 60 per cent of voters under the age of 44 backed Mr. Jones while around 60 per cent of voters above the age of 65 backed Mr. Moore.

Mr. Jones' victory narrows the Republican majority in the Senate to 51-49. Although he got fewer votes last night, Mr. Moore isn't set to disappear from the spotlight. He refused to concede and told his supporters that "when the vote is this close, it's not over." Senate candidates can call for a recount (if they choose to fund one) and an automatic recount will be triggered if the final result was within half a percentage point. Mr. Moore's campaign said that military ballots had not yet come in.

Although the Republican National Committee and U.S. President Donald Trump (his original favoured candidate, current Alabama Senator Luther Strange, was defeated in the primary by Mr. Moore) had distanced themselves from Mr. Moore's campaign after the allegations of molesting underage girls came to light, both decided to support and endorse Mr. Moore in the run-up to yesterday's election.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa, Mayaz Alam in Toronto and James Keller in Vancouver. If you're reading this on the web or someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, you can sign up for Politics Briefing and all Globe newsletters here. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

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CANADIAN HEADLINES

The Liberals are being urged to compensate a group of 25 Canadians who say they were born with disabilities caused by thalidomide, although they do not have proof their mothers took the drug.

The federal government says a residential-school survivor must get the permission of the Catholic Church and the federal government before donating documents to a national centre preserving the legacy of the institutions.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau will release more details today about the Liberals' tax changes for private corporations, which are set to take effect on Jan. 1.

Richard Wagner has been named as the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Mr. Wagner, 60, was first appointed to the top court in 2012 by Stephen Harper and has had a long legal and judicial career in Quebec. In a strange twist of fate, he is also the son of Claude Wagner, a prominent Progressive Conservative politician who sat across the House of Commons aisle from Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s.

MPs are set to vote today to confirm Mario Dion as the new ethics commissioner. At a committee hearing yesterday, Mr. Dion said he was interviewed for the position for one hour three weeks ago, and the government says he was selected by a panel of three bureaucrats and two Liberal staffers. Opposition MPs said they wished they had been consulted about the choice. Mr. Dion replaces Mary Dawson, who has held the position on an interim basis since the summer of 2016.

Newly elected Liberal MP Gordie Hogg is warning against reading too much into his upset victory in a by-election in the B.C. riding of Surrey-White Rock. Mr. Hogg won the riding, which has been a safe Conservative seat for years. But he says it's not clear what the results say about the Liberals' chances to pick up or at least hold onto B.C. seats in the next federal election in 2019.

B.C.'s premier says his decision to proceed with the Site C dam over the objections of two First Nations doesn't break his commitment to reconciliation because, he insists, it's not his project. Premier John Horgan says that because Site C started under a previous government, it's "out of my control." Mr. Horgan's government has spent months reviewing the project as it decided whether to kill the project or see it through.

The Opposition house leader for Alberta's United Conservative Party says he regrets firing an employee after she told him she was being sexually harassed.

B.C. has launched a strategy to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer among Indigenous people, becoming the second province to do so after Ontario.

The government has launched a competition for new fighter jets that includes a test for companies to prove they will have a positive economic impact on Canada. The provision is being called the "Boeing clause," as it arises after a trade dispute launched by the U.S. manufacturer against Canada's Bombardier.

And a light-hearted Maclean's investigation into how much time MPs spend on their phones during Question Period found about a quarter were more interested in their devices than the proceedings.

Globe and Mail editorial board on the purchase of fighter jets: "If the Conservatives hadn't made a mess of things, we'd have brand new fighter jets in the air by now. Instead, our aging fleet will be bolstered by Australian leftovers – not necessarily a bad thing, but far from ideal. We'll finally get new planes in 2025, nine years after the last new ones were supposed to have been uncrated. That's the theory, anyway. With a four-year timeline for finalizing a contract, anything can happen."

Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on this week's by-elections: "In South Surrey-White Rock, Mr. Scheer's party ran with a former Stephen Harper cabinet minister as the candidate and a campaign centred on stoking anger about Liberal small-business tax reforms, much of which had faded. It gave voters a choice between Mr. Trudeau's party and some kind of a return to the past."

Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star) on this week's by-elections: "Throughout the fall — Trudeau's most difficult political season to date — the New Democrats and the Conservatives have been telling themselves that buyer's remorse was about to catch up to the Liberals. It seems both opposition parties had been inhaling their own question period fumes."

Jason Markusoff (Maclean's) on the race to replace Brad Wall in Saskatchewan: "It's not known publicly what Wall, 52, will do in political retirement. Corporate boards will surely covet a business-friendly ex-premier, and he's long dreamed of being an ambassador. This much is clear: when Brad Wall steps down, the stature of his party and province will descend as well."

INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has offered to begin talks with North Korea without any preconditions. He backed down from a previous U.S. demand that any negotiations would have to be about the rogue state dismantling its nuclear arsenal. Mr. Tillerson's role in the White House is under question, according to reports, and it is unclear how much sway he has on the administration's foreign policy.

French President Emmanuel Macron told a summit attended by dozens of world leaders and company executives that "we are losing the battle" against climate change. Mr. Macron has attempted to establish France as a leader in the climate change movement since being elected earlier this year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin receives briefings on Mr. Trump's tweets and the Kremlin views the 280-character missives as official statements from the U.S. president, a Russian spokesman said.

Details for the Republicans' massive tax overhaul are still in flux, despite a bill passing both houses of Congress, as a deadline looms on getting a deal done.

And, from Politico, a look at how political polling transformed one university into a nationally-recognized name.