14 December 2017 12:00 am
Democrat Doug Jones won a bitter fight for a U.S. Senate seat in deeply conservative Alabama on Tuesday, dealing a political blow to President Donald Trump in a race marked by sexual misconduct accusations against Republican candidate Roy Moore.
The stunning upset makes Jones the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in a quarter-century and will trim the Republicans’ already narrow Senate majority to 51-49, endangering Trump’s agenda and opening the door for Democrats to possibly retake the chamber in next year’s congressional elections.
With 99 percent of the vote counted, Jones had a lead of 1.5 percentage points over Moore. But the Republican refused to concede, telling supporters in Montgomery that votes were still coming in and state law would trigger a recount if the margin was within half a percent.
In a CNN interview, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said it was “highly unlikely” that anything would change the election outcome. “The people of Alabama have spoken,” he said.
The ugly campaign drew national attention and split the Republican Party following accusations by several women that Moore sexually assaulted or pursued them when they were teens and he was in his 30s.
Moore, 70, a Christian conservative twice removed from the state Supreme Court in Alabama for ignoring federal law, denied the allegations and said he did not know any of the women who made them. Reuters has not independently verified them.
- REUTERS