Campaign

Doug Jones mocks Moore over reaction to potential Senate bid: ‘They’re just not that into you’

by Jordain Carney 05/30/19 01:48 PM CDT

Democratic Sen. Doug Jones (Ala.) taunted failed GOP nominee Roy Moore on Thursday as the former judge receives fierce pushback from Republicans about a potential second Senate bid.

“It has been so amusing watching all the handwringing by establishment Republicans who were all in for Roy Moore with his cowboy suit & little gun in 2017,” Jones said in a tweet.

“Sorry Roy, guess they’re just not that into you anymore,” he added.

{mosads}Jones’s comment comes as President Trump and national Republicans are urging Moore to stay out of the 2020 Alabama Senate race after losing to Jones in a 2017 special election, handing Democrats a seat that had been in GOP hands for decades. Moore lost the election to Jones after decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls made national headlines and marred his campaign.

Trump tweeted Wednesday that he had nothing against Moore personally, but warned that he could not win the deeply red state, which the president won by nearly 30 percentage points in 2016.

“Republicans cannot allow themselves to again lose the Senate seat in the Great State of Alabama,” Trump said in a tweet Wednesday.

A GOP operative told The Hill that national Republicans view Moore as a “proven loser,” and predicted that additional issues from his background would come out if he runs again.

“There are a lot of Republicans in the state of Alabama who can beat Doug Jones, and Roy Moore has proven that he’s not one of them,” a second GOP strategist told The Hill.

But Moore appeared defiant during a slate of interviews on Wednesday and is expected to make a decision about whether or not to enter the race next month.

Moore told The Associated Press that “everybody knows I can win.” He added during a separate interview with The New York Times that he thinks Trump is getting “bad advice.”

“I think politics are at work and people behind the scenes are trying to force him to distance himself from me,” Moore told the Times. “It’s wrong. The truth is they know I’ll win if I run.”

Moore is one of several conservatives eyeing primary challenges in key Senate seats heading into 2020. But a second Senate bid by Moore would be a nightmare for national Republicans, who view his candidacy as a gift to Jones’s reelection chances.

National groups aren’t ruling out intervening in the Alabama GOP primary if Moore gets into the race.

During his 2017 Senate campaign, Moore faced allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls from when he was in his 20s and 30s. Moore denied the allegations, but Senate Republicans, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, cut ties with him.

Kevin McLaughlin, executive director of the NRSC, has described the Senate GOP campaign wing’s stance as “ABRM: anyone but Roy Moore.”