Two further women have come forward with allegations that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore “made unwanted advances” towards them, the The Guardian reports.
Becky Gray and Gena Richardson bring the number of accusations to eight, several of which accuse the politician of of innapropriate sexual conduct when the women were teenagers. Some of the claims date back to the 1970s.
Moore, 70, is a former judge seeking to fill the Alabama Senate seat vacated by the US attorney general Jeff Sessions. Elections take place in a month's time. However, the ongoing scandal threatens to derail his campaign and has sparked a multilayered war of words between Democrats, Republicans and Moore's supporters.
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What exactly is Moore accused of?
Moore has been accused by a number of women of sexually harassing teenage girls, claims often corroborated by former colleagues.
His accusers include a woman who says Moore molested her when she was 14, while another woman says he sexually assaulted her when she was 16. Moore was in his 30s at the time.
Moore was also reportedly on a watch list at a local shopping centre in Alabama as “a creepy figure who routinely flirted with young girls”, USA Today writes.
He has denied all the accusations, saying they are “the very definition of fake news” and accusing the Democratic Party of a “completely false and a desperate political attack”.
What has the response been?
Despite Moore's claims that the Democrats are behind the allegations, they are far from the only party critical of him.
A large number of Republican senators have publicly spoken out and several have called for him to cancel his bid for the Senate.
“From Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to former presidential candidate Mitt Romney to virtually every voter still capable of being shocked by politicians, there's growing consensus that Roy Moore should drop out of the Senate race in Alabama,” USA Today says.
Some have gone a step further. Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who recently had a protracted war of words with President Donald Trump, said he would support a Democratic candidate over Moore.
“If this choice is between Roy Moore and a Democrat, a Democrat,” he told reporters on Monday, writes Time magazine.
Fellow Republicans Cory Gardner of Colorado and Todd Young of Indiana say that if Moore refuses to stand down and wins, he should be blocked from his position.
“The Senate should vote to expel him, because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate,” tweeted Gardner, with Young adding that politicians will “need to act to protect the integrity of the Senate”.
Over the past week, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial have both withdrawn all official support for Moore, the Atlantic reports.
Who continues to support him?
Moore has been combative in his response, telling McConnell to “bring it on”.
And although the Democrats in Alabama are “making ground in what's usually safe GOP territory”, the Republicans have a strong support base among the right-wing.
“Many people I've met say Alabamans don't like being told what to do by people from outside,” the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan writes. “Roy Moore represents the conservative, evangelical base of the party, which is sick of decrees from the so-called Washington elite.”
On 12 November, Moore's wife Kayla posted an open letter to Facebook, signed by more than 50 Christian ministers from Alabama, advocating support for her husband.
“We are ready to join the fight and send a bold message to Washington: dishonesty, fear of man, and immorality are an affront to our convictions and our Savior and we won’t put up with it any longer. We urge you to join us at the polls to cast your vote for Roy Moore,” the letter read.
Four of the clergymen have since asked for their names to be removed from the list, but the Huffington Post calls the number who have left their endorsement a “crisis in Christianity”.
Despite this, Moore is reportedly trailing Democrat Doug Jones by 12 points, according to a poll conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee yesterday.
