Allegations against Moore add uncertainty to vote

— Pressure mounted Friday on U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama to drop out of the race amid growing Republican angst over potential damage to the party after a woman accused him of molesting her when she was 14.

GOP senators began pulling their endorsements of Moore as it became more apparent that his Democratic rival, Doug Jones, could now win a Senate seat in one of America’s most reliably Republican states.

Moore, 70, appeared to weaken his standing in a radio interview when he did not deny dating teenage girls when he was in his 30s.

In Alabama, voters were torn between loyalty to the widely admired religious-right firebrand and unease over the new allegations that undercut Moore’s conservative image.

At Niki’s West, a popular Southern-style buffet in Birmingham, potential voters said the last thing anyone wanted to talk about on this crisp fall day was “all that sex stuff,” as one man put it, referring to allegations in The Washington Post that Moore had a sexual encounter with the 14-year-old girl when he was 32.

But another man, Gil Franks, a state prison worker, conceded that the disturbing report had him rethinking whether he could vote Republican, as he usually does, in the Dec. 12 special election pitting Moore against Democrat Doug Jones.

“I think we need some morality and ethics in politics,” Franks said.

GOP leaders fear Moore could lose. Loss of the seat is an ominous prospect for Republicans: the twoseat GOP majority was already so narrow that the party has struggled to pass major laws.

Mitt Romney said Friday that he believed Leigh Corfman, 53, the woman who told the Post that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with her in 1979, when she was 14.

“Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections,” the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee said on Twitter, calling Corfman’s account “too serious to ignore.”

Moore, who denies ever meeting Corfman, remained defiant Friday.

In a radio interview Friday with Sean Hannity, Moore did not deny dating teenagers when he was in his early 30s, but said: “I don’t remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother.”

The Post reported that in addition to Corfman, Moore pursued three others who were 16 to 18 years old when he was in his 30s.

Moore admitted he knew two of the women quoted in the Post, but denied any inappropriate contact.

After the radio interview, Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Steve Daines of Montana yanked their endorsements of Moore. The White House said it hoped Moore would “do the right thing and step aside” if the allegations are true, according to the AP.

Moore’s strongest supporters, conservatives and Christians who powered his primary victory against the establishment candidate, Sen. Luther Strange, are standing by him.

The former chief judge of the Alabama Supreme Court, holds folkhero-like stature in the state for defying the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage.

Before the charges emerged, Jones, Moore’s Democratic rival, was widely seen as a long shot.