Roy Moore stood out as the lone Republican lawmaker (or potential lawmaker) accused of sexual misconduct alongside Democrats, and he’s facing the same consequences as the rest of them.
Rep. John Conyers resigned. Senator Al Franken will be gone any day now. And Moore has become the first Republican in nearly three decades to lose a Senate race in deep-red Alabama. Amusing isn’t it, that Democrats needed to coordinate campaigns to ask Conyers and Franken to step down, while Republicans simply had their voters deal with the “problematic” individuals within their party? It’s only worrisome in that there was no due process in any of the aforementioned cases. Even if these men are guilty as charged, the door is wide open for an anonymous accusation to be all it takes to destroy a clean candidate.
While Moore led in the results for most of the night, his opponent, Democrat Doug Jones, jumped ahead as the night came to a close. When it was over, he had received 671,151 votes to Moore’s 650,436. Jones won by 1.5 percentage points, with 49.9% of the vote to Moore’s 48.4 percent, while 1.7 percent of votes (22,819) were write-ins.
Donald Trump, who endorsed Moore, tweeted the following after his defeat:
Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win. The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017
The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017
If last night’s election proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017
Moore, meanwhile, is disputing the results altogether.
According to the Daily Wire,
During his speech on Tuesday evening, the Republican candidate spoke of a possible recount: “… I really want to thank you for coming tonight and realize when the vote is this close, that it’s not over. And we still got to go by the rules about this recount provision, and Secretary of State has explained it to us and we’re expecting that the press will go up there and talk to them to find out what the situation is. … the votes are still coming in, and we’re looking at that. May God bless you as you go on, give you safe journey, and thank you for coming tonight. It’s not over and it’s going to take some time. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Let’s go home, we’ll take it on tomorrow.”
So what’s next? More from the report:
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill told reporters during an impromptu Tuesday night press conference in his state capitol office that the state will direct counties to count provisional ballots, absentee ballots and military ballots.
By December 22, the results of the ballot count will be provided to Merrill. An automatic recount would be triggered if the gap between candidates is less than 0.5%, per Alabama state law. As it stands early Wednesday morning, Jones is beating Moore by 1.5%.
If the provisional ballots, absentee ballots, and military ballots are counted, and the margin remains larger than 0.5%, Moore would have to foot the bill for a recount himself.
Moore says it’s not over, but it’ll take a few thousand extra votes to change that now.
Do you think Moore has a chance? Tell us your thoughts below!
