Alabama GOP standing with Moore

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Alabama Republican Party said Thursday that it would stand behind the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore, who faces numerous allegations of sexual misconduct and unwanted overtures to women.

The decision, which a committee of 21 party leaders reached Wednesday evening but did not formally announce until Thursday, placed the state’s Republicans at odds with national party leaders, who had demanded that the 70-year-old former judge leave the race before a special election in December.

Moore and his supporters lashed out at his accusers in a Thursday news conference in which he refused to answer any questions.

He called the allegations “unsubstantiated,” “unproven” and “fake.”

“They’re not only untrue, but they have no evidence to support them,” he said.

At least three new allegations of misconduct surfaced the day before, including one by Tina Johnson, who told AL.com that Moore groped her during a 1991 meeting in his law office. Two others told The Washington Post that they were young women when Moore courted them while he was a district attorney in his 30s. Three other women told the newspaper last week that they were teens when Moore tried to initiate romantic relationships. One said she was 14 when Moore touched her over her bra and underwear.

The state party’s choice to reaffirm its support for his campaign is a crucial procedural victory for Moore’s campaign.

“Judge Moore has vehemently denied the allegations made against him,” the chairman of the state party, Terry Lathan, said in a statement. “He deserves to be presumed innocent of the accusations unless proven otherwise. He will continue to take his case straight to the people of Alabama.”

She added, “We trust the Alabama voters in this election to have our beloved state and nation’s best interest at heart.”

Some Alabama Republicans had privately discussed the idea of decertifying Moore’s victory in the primary, a move that could have put the Senate seat at greater risk and, perhaps more consequentially in the years to come, jeopardized the party’s relationship with the voters who swept Republicans into power in that state.

In Washington, Republican leaders set aside any such fears and have made plain their disgust for Moore, who they worry will endanger the party’s elected officials and candidates nationwide. The Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee cut off financial support for Moore’s campaign, and senators have openly said Moore could be expelled if he wins the election.

At the White House on Wednesday, President Donald Trump ignored questions about whether Moore should step aside. On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump believes the voters of Alabama should decide Moore’s fate and that he finds the allegations against the Republican Senate candidate “very troubling.”

Moore is running against Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee and a former federal prosecutor in Birmingham, to fill the seat that Attorney General Jeff Sessions vacated this year and that is currently held by Republican Luther Strange. Although Republicans control every statewide office in Alabama, polls have shown a tightening race.

Few figures in modern Alabama politics have been as contentious as Moore, who was, in effect, twice ousted as chief justice of the state Supreme Court. He has promoted views on same-sex marriage, Islam and other subjects that have been condemned as bigoted, and he has clashed with critics over the placement of the Ten Commandments in Alabama courthouses.

Many of Moore’s supporters in Alabama have embraced him despite the allegations and are suspicious of the news organizations that have published the accounts of the women as part of what Moore’s wife, Kayla Moore, has called “a witch hunt.”