A defiant Roy Moore brushed aside Donald Trump’s warning not to run for Senate again, telling POLITICO on Wednesday that Alabama voters are capable of deciding for themselves whether he’s fit for office.
“The president doesn’t control who votes for the United States Senate in Alabama,” Moore said in a phone interview. “People in Alabama are smarter than that. They elect the senator from Alabama, not from Washington, D.C.”
The scandal-plagued former judge said he is “seriously considering” running for Senate again and plans to decide in a “few weeks.”
Moore’s recalcitrance comes as Republicans, including Trump, are warning him to stay out of the race against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. Republicans view the Alabama contest as a linchpin of their Senate majority — ousting Jones in 2020 would give the GOP a larger cushion with the party mostly on defense on the Senate map.
Jones narrowly defeated Moore in a special election in 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct by Moore with young girls decades ago. Those allegations emerged after Moore won the GOP nomination by defeating the Trump-endorsed candidate, then-interim Sen. Luther Strange.
Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that he has “NOTHING” against Moore, despite the sexual misconduct allegations against the former judge. But, he wrote, Moore “cannot win, and the consequences will be devastating.” That came after Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also tweeted at Moore to steer clear of the race.
Top allies to Senate Republican leadership have made clear they view Moore as the best chance Democrats have to maintain the seat.
“We believe most Alabama Republicans realize that nominating Roy Moore would be gift wrapping this Senate seat for Chuck Schumer,” said Steven Law, president of Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Moore is convinced he could capture his party’s nomination in the face of the president’s opposition again. He said some Republicans are fearful that he still has support in the state.
“They know I’ll win,” he said. “That’s why they’re upset.”
He also continues to deny the multiple allegations of inappropriate behavior against him that were reported on during the 2017 race. “It was fake news then, [and] it’s fake news now,” Moore said.
Republicans have believed for weeks that Moore was likely to run for Senate again. They also acknowledge there’s little they can do to stop him, and that he has a hard-core base of supporters in the state that likely gives him both a high floor and low ceiling of support. Alabama election laws require winning a majority of the vote to secure a party nomination, so Moore could have an opening to make a runoff in a crowded primary field.
Opposition to his potential candidacy has been fairly unified throughout the party. Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, had spoken with Trump in recent weeks and raised concerns about Moore, according to two people familiar with the discussion.
Trump’s tweet Wednesday was widely praised by Republicans, who believe the president is uniquely able to chip away at Moore’s support given his popularity among the GOP base in deep-red Alabama.
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