Factfile: Who is Doug Jones, the Democrat who just won in Alabama?

Who is Doug Jones, the new senator from Alabama?

- Jones, 63, is a Democrat who once prosecuted two Ku Klux Klansmen in a deadly church bombing and has now broken the Republican lock grip on Alabama. He was elected the state’s new US senator.

- He grew up in the working-class city of Fairfield, just west of Birmingham, an area where steel mills once belched smoke that left a rust-coloured haze hanging over the metro area. Jones spent time working in a mill when not in school. Now an attorney in private practice, Jones lives just a few miles from his hometown in the hilly suburb of Mountain Brook.

- Years before running for Senate, Jones made a name for himself prosecuting two KKK members for the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, a brutal crime that killed four black girls in 1963.

- Alabama’s Democratic Party has been on life support since Republicans gained ascendancy years ago, but Jones supported an effort to revive the organisation in 2013. A former party chairman formed the Alabama Democratic Majority to raise money and recruit candidates, and Jones was among those publicly supportive of the effort.

Who is Roy Moore, the Republican who lost?

• The Republican candidate had a cloud of controversy hanging over his head — not just from allegations of sexual impropriety, but also a history of inflammatory statements and legal run-ins that knocked him out of the Alabama Supreme Court twice.

• The former judge had a loyal base of support, but there were traditionally Republican voters who found his views on homosexuality, Muslims and civil rights distasteful.

• Despite his obvious flaws as a candidate with any broad appeal, the impact of this defeat will be felt in several ways.