Republican Moore loses Senate race in major setback for Trump

President had endorsed Moore, arguing the candidate would step aside if claims were proven

WASHINGTON: In a major setback to Donald Trump, a Republican whom the US president had endorsed despite allegations of sexual misconduct, lost the Senate race in Alabama, a deeply conservative state that last elected a Democrat 25 years ago.

Roy Moore, who had been abandoned by a majority of his own party leaders, was projected by US media to lose to Democrat Doug Jones in a battle that wasn’t a battle until the claims of sexually inappropriate behaviour against him began surfacing, including by a woman who was under-age at the time she was allegedly assaulted.

But Moore, who was running to fill a seat left vacant by Jeff Sessions who is Trump’s attorney general, refused to concede the race and said in brief remarks that the votes were still being counted — write-in votes, absentee ballots — and that he would wait for the process to be completed.

Jones, a former US attorney who had prosecuted two members of the Ku Klux Klan for a 1963 bombing of a church in which four African Americans girls were killed, will be the first Democrat Alabama has sent to the US senate since 1992.

His projected upset win would owe as much to Moore’s flawed candidacy as it would to the Democratic party machine that poured money and resources sensing a chance of victory.

After initially holding back his endorsement, Trump had come to fully embrace Moore, arguing that the Republican candidate should step aside if the allegations were proven , but he needed every vote in the Senate to push through legislative agenda, which has had a patchy run thus far.

Trump broke with most members of his party including the senior Republican senator from Alabama Richard Shelby, who had announced they would not vote for Moore. Jeff Flake, a Republican senator from Arizona, publicly announced he had donated to Jones’ campaign.

Trump tweeted: “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!”

White House watchers said Moore’s defeat could test Trump’s relations with former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who had advised him to back the candidate.