Alabama test for scandal-hit Republican

MIDLAND CITY: Candidates in Alabama’s intensely-watched Senate race made their final pitches to voters on Monday, after President Donald Trump urged loyalists to elect the firebrand Republican Roy Moore despite accusations he molested minors decades ago.

The two protagonists in the race, Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, headlined competing rallies, where they implored supporters to march to the polls and vote, on perhaps the most closely-watched United States election day this year.

“Everyone in this state, and most of the people in this nation, is watching this election,” Moore said at his first public campaign event in six days, as he blasted outside influence on the race.

The election appeared headed to the wire in this conservative bastion and unexpected battleground, where Democrats pulled out the stops, recruiting Barack Obama to rally support for the party’s standardbearer.

“This one is serious. You cannot sit it out,” the former president said in a robocall ahead of yesterday’s special election.

“Get out and vote, Alabama.” Trump has put out a call of his own, telling residents that “I need Alabama to vote for Roy Moore”.

Until recently, it had been unimaginable for a Republican to lose a statewide election in Alabama, which Trump carried handily and which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992.

But, Moore’s candidacy turned toxic for the Republican Party after The Washington Post published an investigative account, including accusations by women who claim he sexually molested or pursued them when they were in their teens and he was a state attorney in his 30s.

One of the women said she was 14 when Moore molested her.

Moore, now 70, denied the allegations.

Some in the Republican establishment have sought to distance themselves from Moore.

But, with Republicans clinging to a razor thin Senate majority, Trump, who himself was infamously caught on tape boasting about groping women, has given Moore his political blessing.

The latest survey by Fox News put Jones ahead by 10 points, although a new Emerson poll has Moore ahead by nearly that much. The two are competing to replace Jeff Sessions, who become US attorney general. AFP