BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – Standing before cheering supporters in the deeply red state of Alabama, former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday urged Alabama voters to send Democrat Doug Jones to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate.
Biden said while a win by Jones in the GOP stronghold would reverberate across the country, he said Alabama voters should elect Jones “for Alabama.”
“Doug has demonstrated his courage and his absolute integrity,” Biden told a cheering crowd of 1,100 in Birmingham. “Doug knows Alabama. He knows your heart and he’ll never let you down.”
Jones in the Dec. 12 election faces Republican Roy Moore who last week pulled off an upset over a better funded incumbent backed by President Donald Trump. Jones, a lawyer and former U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration, is best known for prosecuting the Klansmen who bombed a Birmingham church in 1963, killing four black girls.
Biden said Jones demonstrated his courage in taking on that case 40 years later and sending the message to the Klan that “justice would follow them to the gates of hell if need be.”