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Now, as the longest government shutdown in history rolls into a fourth week, Jones finds himself holding the same position as Nancy Pelosi, the liberal House speaker: Reopen the government, then negotiate on border security.
Jones is the only red-state Senate Democrat up for re-election in 2020. By taking on President Donald Trump and the border wall, which are both popular in Alabama, and refusing to give ground on the shutdown, the senator may be the last “Doug Jones Democrat” to win here anytime soon.
Alabama has one of the largest groups of federal workers in the country, and the economic pain of those who are out of work because of the shutdown is rippling through local businesses across the state.
“I voted for Jones, I did,” said Ann Lynch, an 86-year-old retired schoolteacher, as she did her grocery shopping wrapped in a fur coat on a brisk afternoon in Huntsville, where more than half the local economy is tied to federal spending. “But he doesn’t support the wall. I don’t like that, of course. I think we need it. Trump knows we need it.”
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Jones’ opposition also underscores the challenge Trump faces in fulfilling one of his key campaign promises, and the fierce partisanship that has come to define the stalled shutdown negotiations. If the president can’t convince a Democrat from Alabama — the most vulnerable senator up for re-election in 2020 — to back his wall, who can he sway?
“I’m just not going to throw money at anybody who is with a gun to my head,” Jones said in an interview, referring to Trump’s $5.7 billion request for the wall. “Let’s get the government open.”
In Huntsville, the effect of empty offices at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on the Army’s Redstone Arsenal base has rippled through the contractors, restaurants and hotels that power Rocket City. With 5,000 workers furloughed across the state, the pain is being felt by people like Angie Gates, whose small family restaurant lost out on $600 worth of lunch business recently because a prison training program was shut down during the wall standoff.
“For us, because we’re a small town, the shutdown is kind of difficult. But there’s also things in politics that may be worth doing,” said Gates. “If Doug Jones doesn’t support the wall, I don’t support him.”
Democrats argue that the politics of the shutdown favor their party, pointing to surveys showing that a majority of Americans blame the president for the stalemate and oppose the wall.
But that political calculus may not hold for Jones, who won a special election to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions when he was appointed attorney general. Polling also shows that support for the wall among conservatives, who make up much of Alabama’s electorate, has remained strong during the shutdown. Even supporters of Jones think he’s in trouble.
“He’s a dead man walking,” said former Rep. Parker Griffith, a conservative Democrat who helped Jones in his election and continues to support him. “He leaned into his base, and his base is not big enough to elect him.”
The partisanship that has become a hallmark of the Trump era has not been kind to moderate Democrats: Of the five other Democrats from Trump-supporting red states who were in the Senate when Jones arrived last year, three lost their 2018 re-election bids after opposing Trump on various fronts, including the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
One who survived last year, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has stood closer to Trump on the border wall than any other Democrat in the Senate, running an ad during his campaign touting his support for the proposal and saying he would back a presidential declaration of a state of emergency, if it would end the shutdown.
Jones has adopted a different playbook. While he has voted with Trump half the time, according to the website FiveThirtyEight, more than nearly any other Senate Democrat, he has stood with national Democrats on high-profile issues, including opposing Kavanaugh. He used his first speech on the Senate floor to call for new gun control measures, tackling an issue that has long been anathema to many Southern Democrats.
Democrats hope voters will value Jones’ decision to stick with his gut when it comes to difficult political issues, even if that means siding with the national party.
“He’s a guy who’s going to be true to himself,” said John Anzalone, a Birmingham-based Democratic pollster. “Authenticity is what sells in a place like Alabama.”
But there’s also little question that Jones hit the political jackpot with his special election in 2017 by facing Roy Moore, an already-controversial Republican opponent who became all but radioactive after charges of sexual assault against underage girls. Even with that baggage, Jones beat Moore by only about 20,000 votes.
A number of Republican officials in the state, including Rep. Bradley Byrne and Alabama state Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh, are considering challenging Jones next year. None have the liabilities of Moore, who motivated a surge of black Democratic voters while prompting some Alabama Republicans to cross party lines and others to stay home from the polls.
On top of those local challenges, Jones will also be running against the backdrop of the 2020 presidential election, a contest that will both highlight the national Democratic platform and bring out conservative voters eager to support the president.
Even some of his supporters don’t expect to be represented by Jones for much longer.
“Senator Jones, bless his heart, he’ll be a one-term senator,” said Sheila Pressnell, 61, as she walked through a Huntsville shopping center popular with employees of NASA and other government agencies. “The only reason he got it was because he was up against a child predator.”
In the interview, Jones said he is seeking bipartisan solutions to the shutdown, saying the debate “is just nothing but political noise right now” and blaming both parties for the stalemate.
Republicans from his state have taken a starkly different approach.
“The president is not going to blink, and he shouldn’t,” said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Jones’ Republican colleague in the Senate, adding that he would tell furloughed federal workers to “get your Democrat friends to the table and negotiate with us.”
While shutdowns rarely determine the outcome of elections that come months or years later, the current political climate delivers a political double whammy to Jones’ standing in the state, as some voters blame Congress, bitter that lawmakers are collecting paychecks as government workers struggle, and others want the border wall.
Sandra Snell, a Transportation Security Administration agent at the Huntsville Municipal Airport, said she doesn’t believe anyone in Washington understands the economic struggles she now faces. Before the shutdown, she was preparing to sign a loan on a new house. Now, she’s worried about paying her bills.
“'You’re a federal employee, I’m a federal employee,’ ” Snell, 51, said she would like to tell members of Congress. “I’m having to go to work without pay. You’re going to work with pay. I’d like to see my check, too.”
In Huntsville, local lenders and utilities are offering ways for furloughed workers to negotiate lower rates. Restaurants near the base say they have seen a nearly 50 percent drop in customers since the shutdown began. Churches offer counseling for furloughed workers. Food banks are stocking up on nonperishable, hearty fare like pasta, beans and tuna. And pawnshops are doing brisk business.
Jones has been working with constituents to help them find services, and he has been an active presence on television and on the Senate floor pushing for a resolution. He has pushed to meet with Trump, saying the White House should come and brief members of Congress beyond just the party leadership.
But for some in Alabama, the crisis offers another reminder to voters that Jones doesn’t back the president — or his top campaign promise. Pam McGriff, owner of a custom interior car detailing shop in Holly Pond, didn’t vote in Jones’ first election but said she would consider supporting him in 2020 if he supported Trump.
“If he would go up there and balk the Democrats, like Schumer and Pelosi, and say, ‘Hey, I think Trump is right,’ and all that kind of stuff, I wouldn’t mind splitting my ticket,” said McGriff, 56, a Republican.
Her husband, Wayne, disagreed, saying that sitting out Jones’ election wasn’t a choice he would be likely to repeat after watching the senator in office.
“He should support what the people of Alabama want, which is the wall,” he said. “He shouldn’t be there, and next time he’ll be voted out.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.