Alabama Senate Race

Donald Trump Jr. Declares Roy Moore “Fake News”

The disgraced judge is running again, risking Republican control of the Senate. Can a sharply worded tweet from the president’s son keep Alabamians in line?

By Tina Nguyen

June 20, 2019

Judge Roy Moore, who infamously tanked the Alabama Senate Race in 2017, announced Thursday that he will try again in 2020, and alleged misconduct around underage girls be damned. “Can I win? Yes, I can win. They know I can, that’s why there’s so much opposition,” he told voters in Montgomery. “Why is there such a fear, such an anger, why such a hatred, an opposition to somebody running? The mere mention of my name causes people to get up in arms in Washington, DC Is it because I’m a staunch conservative?…Is it because I believe in God, in marriage, morality in our country? Is it because I believe in the right of the baby in the womb to have a life?”

The only hangup? Republicans would desperately prefer that Moore remain on the sidelines, a wish they have vocally expressed. Donald Trump attempted to dissuade him back in May, tweeting that “Roy Moore cannot win, and the consequences will be devastating.” Moore’s claim on Thursday that he is “not going against President Trump” by running was instantly dashed by the president’s son. “This is pure fake news,” Don Jr. tweeted. “I can assure everyone that by running, Roy Moore is going against my father and he’s doing a disservice to all conservatives across the country in the process.”

Indeed, to the Republican Party, which is gearing up to defend 22 seats in the next election, Moore’s candidacy is potentially a significant threat. His run in 2017 virtually handed Alabama’s Senate seat to Doug Jones, the first Democrat to hold it in more than two decades. It’s unclear whether Alabamian attitudes toward the scandal that defined Moore’s race has changed, but given the stakes, no sensible GOP operative would put him up against Jones again. (Moore has continued to deny the allegations.) Polling suggests that Jones would lose against a generic Republican, despite his 45% approval rating—high for a Democrat in a deep red state. But Moore is by no means generic. And he may in fact become Jones’s competitor: at this point in the race, he’s polling over his fellow Republican primary contenders by double digits.

That could change as the race progresses, of course. But Moore is taking the early numbers as a mandate, and has been laying groundwork for his campaign for months, raising money off his alleged persecution by the GOP establishment and the mainstream media and bizarrely claiming to have “won” the election against Jones, blaming his apparent loss on Democratic interference and “Republican collusion.”

For Republicans desperately hoping to block the recalcitrant Moore, however, there’s a sliver of hope in former attorney general Jeff Sessions, who’s reportedly weighing a run himself. “I’ve talked to him about it. I think if he ran, he would be a formidable candidate. Formidable. I’ve not encouraged him to run, but he’s a friend, and if he ran, I think he’d probably clear the field,” his former Senate colleague Richard Shelby of Alabama told the Washington Post. As for Moore, he was noticeably less laudatory. “I think Alabama could do better…I think he would be a disrupter,” he said of Moore, without a hint of irony. “I won’t be supporting him.”