Trump ally on Moore loss: ‘Everyone is going to start panicking’
An adviser to a top pro-President Trump super PAC says the results of the Alabama special election are going to make Republicans and Trump supporters “start panicking.”
“You’ve got to have a good candidate and unified party. You can’t have Steve Bannon going one way with Trump and the Republican Senate committee going another way,” Ed Rollins, who advises the Great America Alliance super PAC, told The Washington Post. “It’s going to make everything more difficult. Everyone is going to start panicking.”
{mosads}Democratic candidate Doug Jones earned a stunning victory over Republican opponent Roy Moore in the Alabama special election to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, was a strong supporter of Moore, campaigning for him in the final weeks of the election.
Trump also offered Moore an enthusiastic endorsement, holding a rally near Alabama’s border last week and using Twitter to attack Jones.
But Moore was marred by multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including one woman who said Moore initiated a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 years old and he was in his 30s. Moore denied the accusations.
The allegations caused Moore to lose most of his support from top Republicans, who called on Moore to drop out of the race and threatened to subject him to an immediate ethics investigation if he won the election.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee also pulled its support for Moore following the sexual misconduct accusations, depriving him of some key funding in the final weeks of the race.
Jones’s victory deals a blow to Trump and Senate Republicans, whose advantage in the Senate shrinks to a 51-49 margin.
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