Mitch McConnell says he believes Roy Moore's accusers
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that he believes the women who have accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct. McConnell said Moore, the Republican candidate in Alabama's Dec. 12 race, "should step aside." He also told reporters that pursuing a write-in candidate for the election was "an option."
On Saturday, Axios reported that Senate Republican leaders were skeptical that they'd be able to convince Moore to step down — adding that McConnell was "willing to lose the seat to prevent someone who's guilty of these things from taking it." During the Republican primary in the Alabama Senate race, McConnell threw his support behind the incumbent, Sen. Luther Strange.
Moore, whose name cannot be removed from the ballot under Alabama law, has denied the allegations of sexual misconduct. "I don't remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother," Moore told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Friday. Per RealClearPolitics, polls taken since Thursday show Moore leading his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, by just 2 percentage points.
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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.
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