WASHINGTON (AP) – Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, widely considered the Senate’s most endangered Democrat, voted Wednesday to convict President Donald Trump as the Senate impeachment trial concluded with Trump’s acquittal – and Republicans will try to use Jones’ vote against him as they seek to reclaim the once reliably red state.
Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Jones said the sum of the evidence revealed “a picture of a president who has abused the great power of his office for personal gain, a picture of a president who has placed his personal interest well above the interest of the nation.”
The Senate vote on both impeachment articles fell short of the required 67 votes in the Republican-dominated Senate to remove Trump.
Jones faces reelection this fall in a heavily Republican state that Trump carried by 28 percentage points in 2016. In an upset, Jones narrowly won a special election for a vacant seat in 2017 against Republican nominee Roy Moore, who had been accused of sexual misconduct with teenagers when he was in his thirties.
Some observers had suggested that the former federal prosecutor might decide to acquit Trump on at least one of the two counts.