Black voters are key to Democratic hopes in Alabama's Senate race. Will they turn out? getlinkinfo

Two minutes into Sunday’s invocation, after blessing the sunshine and recent snowfall and its swift melting, the pastor turned to the political contest that has riveted the nation’s attention on the Deep South.

Black voters are key to Democratic hopes

He asked the Lord to lift up the country, from the White House to City Hall, and asked for deliverance of a new U.S. senator for Alabama who “will suit us best and is the one that will meet our needs.”

The minister, the Rev. Arthur Price Jr., didn’t say who he had in mind. But speaking to a predominantly black congregation in the basement of Birmingham’s historic 16th Street Baptist Church, he didn’t have to.

Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s special election, is sure to carry the African American vote in a landslide. To have any shot at winning, however, he needs a robust black turnout to help offset the strong support Republican Roy Moore can expect from Alabama’s mostly conservative white electorate.

Charges of sexual misconduct by Moore have turned what should have been a GOP romp into a fiercely competitive race and the campaign into a gothic narrative of lust and recrimination.

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