With all of the infighting on the Republican side, and the chance of a candidate going farther to the right than any recent nominee in the state, it’s a logical question to ask.  Moreover, the Democrat’s nominee, Doug Jones, avoided a run off and can wait until the Moore and Strange have bloodied each other in their competitive run-off (that election is at the end of September).

One important tea leaf is what the participation was in each primary.  It was a historically low turn out–the Alabama secretary of state reported participation Tuesday between 10 and 15% of the electorate.  But if you look at the total votes cast by party, it’s clear the Dems have a big mountain to climb.  The total votes cast for 8 Democrats vying for the nomination was (if I’m doing the math correctly) just shy of 160,000.  That total is below what Republican Judge Moore received in the Republican primary (162,570).  The total number of Republicans that voted was nearly 418,000–well over twice the participation on the Democrats side.

The other factor is that there is  a large timeframe between the Republican run-off election (end of September) and the general election (mid-December), so there is plenty of time for a candidate to rehab himself and solidify his coalition on the Republican side.

But while I would say its highly, highly unlikely the Democrats pull off an upset, one thing learned from last year is never say never, and in the event something completely unlikely and unforeseen occurs, you want to be positioned to take advantage of that.

https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/alabama-senate-special-election-primary