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Republicans are cutting ties with Roy Moore, the party’s candidate in the December 12 special Senate election in Alabama, following allegations that the controversial former judge sexually abused a 14-year-old girl.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Moore was accused by Leigh Corfman of initiating a sexual encounter in 1979 when she was 14 years old and he was a 32-year-old prosecutor.
Three other women said Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18, though none accused him of sexual contact.
Roy Moore denies the allegations of sexual misconduct.
The 70-year-old on Friday dismissed the allegations as “completely false and misleading” and insisted he had "never engaged in sexual misconduct."
The national campaign wing for US Senate Republicans cut fund-raising ties with Moore on Friday, while senior party figures, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and former presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney, have said he must step down if the accusations are true.
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President Donald Trump's view was shared via White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who told reporters on Air Force One, flying from Beijing to Vietnam, on Friday:
“Like most Americans, the President believes that we cannot allow a mere allegation – in this case, one from many years ago – to destroy a person's life. However, the President also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.”
Several Alabama Republican officials are sticking by Moore, however, and it is too late to replace him as the party’s candidate on the ballot.
His bid for the Senate was championed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who helped the 70-year-old to victory in a primary over Luther Strange, the incumbent appointed to fill the seat when Jeff Sessions was named US attorney general.
Moore, a Christian conservative, was twice forced out of his position as Alabama's chief justice, once for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse and once for defying the US Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
Opportunity for Democrats?
Democrats, buoyed by gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday, are stepping up efforts to take a Senate seat in the deeply Republican state for the first time this millennium. A win for candidate Doug Jones would cut the Republican majority in the Senate to 51-49.
Zac McCrary, a veteran Democratic pollster based in Birmingham, Alabama, said he now sees Jones as the favorite. "Roy Moore had much less margin for error than a Republican does traditionally in Alabama," McCrary said.
But Jonathan Gray, a Republican consultant in Alabama, said voters were already questioning the veracity of the Washington Post story, given its timing. The only development that could sink Moore's candidacy is a write-in campaign from a Republican backed by the party, he said.
Absent that, Gray said, all the analysis in the world will not change a simple fact: "Roy Moore wins December 12."
(REUTERS)
