Alabama Senate race gets even stranger as Democrat quotes Ivanka in ad
A new ad for Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones uses the words of prominent Alabama Republicans and Ivanka Trump against his opponent, Roy Moore.
The ad, titled “Voices,” quotes Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, Attorney General Jeff Sessions (who held the seat Moore is seeking to fill in the Dec. 12 special election) and Ivanka Trump, saying there is no reason to doubt the women who have accused Moore of sexual misconduct.
Ivanka Trump’s remarks last week to the Associated Press — “There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children” and “I have no reason to doubt the victims’ accounts” — seemed especially barbed.
Related: The women who have accused Roy Moore
Sessions is quoted as saying, “I have no reason to doubt these women,” and Shelby is cited as saying he will “absolutely not” vote for Moore.
None of the three has endorsed Jones.
At least nine women have leveled accusations against Moore, from sexual assault to attempting to coerce them into sex when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. The Moore campaign has denied the allegations, which were first reported by the Washington Post. Local news organizations have followed up with further accusations against Moore, including a story that he was banned from a local mall for his alleged habit of approaching teenage girls when he was an assistant district attorney.
Related: All hail Roy Moore at “pro-family” rally as accusations pile up
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has said that she will vote for Moore. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, meanwhile, has said that the White House will let the people of Alabama decide, although Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway implicitly endorsed Moore’s candidacy Monday on Fox News by stating “we want the votes” to get the GOP tax cut plan through the Senate. The Republican National Committee has cut ties with the Moore campaign, and Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has said that if Moore should win the election, his colleagues should vote to expel him because “he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements” of the Senate.
Jones, a former U.S. attorney, has edged ahead in recent polling in the race. After the Moore allegations first surfaced, the Jones campaign released an ad with statements from people who said they were Republicans who planned to vote for the Democrat because Moore was unacceptable.
Moore was ousted as chief judge of Alabama in 2003 over his insistence on keeping a monument to the Ten Commandments in his courthouse.
(Cover tile photo: Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: Brynn Anderson/AP, Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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