Trump says Roy Moore lost because 'the deck was stacked against him'
Butch Dill/AP
- President Donald Trump tweeted that defeated Senate candidate from Alabama, Roy Moore, had the deck stacked against him in Tuesday's election.
- Trump added that he originally had pushed for a different candidate because he knew Moore would lose.
- It's unclear how he knew Moore would lose. The sexual misconduct allegations only emerged after his nomination and Alabama has been a GOP seat since the 1990s.
President Donald Trump reflected on the Republican party's upset in Alabama's senate race on by saying Roy Moore had worked hard, but ultimately the deck was stacked against him.
"The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!" Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning.
Moore's loss to Democrat Doug Jones in what was considered a safe seat for Republicans in deep red Alabama narrows the GOP's majority in the Senate to just 51 and will embolden Democrats ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
The election was dominated by revelations that Moore had had inappropriate relations with nine young women, one of whom was legally underage. The allegations against Moore came during the swelling #MeToo movement, which has exposed the sexual misconduct of powerful men around the world.
During the same period that Moore received the Republican National Convention's endorsement amid a storm of misconduct allegations, top Democrats led a push to clean the house of Democratic lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct.
The allegations against Moore held Trump from campaigning for the Alabama Senate candidate briefly, but he eventually offered a de facto, and then explicit endorsements of Moore, saying that the Republican party needed to maintain its numbers in the Senate.
What stacked deck?
Thomson Reuters
It's unclear why Trump thought Moore would not be able to win the senatorial election, because the allegations against Moore only came to light after he had clinched the nomination.
Despite Trump's forecast that Moore would lose, and his initial endorsement of Strange, Moore very nearly did win the election, losing by just 1.5 points. In facy, Moore felt the vote was so close he has not conceded by the time of this writing on Wednesday morning.
Additionally, it's unclear what Trump means by the deck being "stacked" against Moore, or if that refers to misconduct allegations. Republicans have held both Alabama Senate seats since the mid 1990s, and the state consistently votes for the GOP.
Trump has expressed doubts over Moore's guilt in the allegations, calling attention to a report that one of Moore's accusers had amended his signature in her high school yearbook by adding notes to it at a rally in Pensacola, Florida, which shares a media market with Alabama.
"Did you see what happened today? You know, the yearbook?" Trump asked the audience at his rally. "There was a little mistake made. She started writing things in the yearbook. Ah, what are we gonna do."
But overall, Trump seemed conciliatory about the election that did not go his way from the start. Immediately after Jones clinched the victory, Trump tweeted to congratulate him.