Embattled Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore rejected Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s advice that he abandon the race, and said McConnell is the one who should step down.
“The person who should step aside is @SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell,” Moore said on Twitter. “He has failed conservatives and must be replaced. #DrainTheSwamp.”
McConnell backed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange over Moore in the primary and Moore has pledged to vote against McConnell serving another term as Majority Leader.
McConnell said Monday that Moore needs to step down after a report last week that Moore made sexual advances toward a young teenage girl when he was 32 years old, and other women said he dated them when they were high-school age.
That prompted several Republicans to say Moore should “step aside” if that report was true. Moore denied it, but McConnell said Monday that the women’s claims seemed legitimate.
“I believe the women,” McConnell said.
McConnell said on “option” for Republicans is to find a write-in candidate, but he said there were no firm plans. One possibility is for Republicans to push for voters to write-in Strange during the election, a plan that Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, endorsed Monday.
“I stand with the Majority Leader on this,” Hatch said on Twitter. “These are serious and disturbing accusations, and while the decision is now in the hands of the people of Alabama, I believe Luther Strange is an excellent alternative.”
I stand with the Majority Leader on this. These are serious and disturbing accusations, and while the decision is now in the hands of the people of Alabama, I believe Luther Strange is an excellent alternative. https://t.co/L7IallXhBc
— Orrin Hatch (@OrrinHatch) November 13, 2017
Alabama votes on Dec. 12 in a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is now Trump’s attorney general.
