Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, hopes Roy Moore will not win his race to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions in one of Alabama’s seats in the Senate.
“My hope is that … the voters of Alabama will not elect Roy Moore,” Collins said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday morning.
Collins, who is one of 21 female senators, said she has read his denials and listened to his most recent radio interview, but “I did not find him to be credible.”
Moore, a former Alabama state judge, is the Republican nominee in the 2017 special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Sessions when he joined the Trump administration.
Numerous sexual abuse allegations have surfaced during his campaign, beginning with four women who detailed unwanted sexual harassment or assault by Moore when they were aged 14 to 18. Moore has denied those allegations, as well as those by other women who have since come forward.
Collins has said before she doesn’t believe Moore, but if he is elected he has to be seated.
“I believe, at least from my reading of the Constitution, that if he is elected, then we have no choice but to seat him,” she said Sunday, adding, “Then however, the Ethics Committee could have an investigation […] I’m not going to comment on what could happen as a result of that investigation.”
But Collins, like many other Republicans, said she hopes it doesn’t get that far.
“But I hope that the good voters of Alabama decide not to send him to the United States Senate,” she said.
According to a Fox News poll released Tuesday, Democratic candidate Doug Jones has an 8-point lead over Moore.
