Roy Moore, the former Republican state judge who has been accused of child molestation, has lost the senate race to Democratic attorney Doug Jones by a slim margin. With 100% of polls in, the New York Timesreports that Jones won the contest with 671,151 votes or 49.9% of the vote. Republican Roy Moore garnered 48.4% of the vote with 650,436 ballots cast in his favor.
Jones, who has never previously held political office, was greatly helped with a large voter turnout of African Americans. Jones is the first Democrat to be voted into the Senate from the conservative state of Alabama in some time.
Moore, when asked what time period he believed America to be great, in reference to Donald Trump's MAGA slogan, responded, "I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another.... Our families were strong, our country had a direction."
Jones, on the other hand, prosecuted two members of the Ku Klux Klan for their roles in the 1963 white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church that took the lives of four Black girls and injured multiple others. Both men were found guilty.
Donald Trump, who publicly endorsed Moore, took to Twitter, to congratulate Senator-elect Jones on his victory while also saying that Republicans will have another chance at the seat in the future.
A Washington Post investigation from November highlighted four women who have accused Roy Moore of having sexual or romantic relations with them while they were teenagers and he was in his thirties. Moore has denied the allegations.
