Alabama: Battling sexual harassment allegations, Trump backed Roy Moore looks to win crucial Senate seat

Voters in Alabama headed to the polls on Tuesday in a hard-fought US Senate race with high stakes for President Donald Trump, who has endorsed fellow Republican Roy Moore in spite of allegations against him of sexual misconduct towards teenagers.

Moore, 70, a former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, is battling former US attorney Doug Jones, a Democrat, for the Senate seat. Jones, 63, hopes to pull off an upset victory in the deeply conservative Southern state.

The race will test Trump's political clout after nearly a year in office, with his approval ratings at historically low levels. A win by Moore would strengthen Trump's grip on the Republican Party, some of whose leaders have not backed Moore.

A Jones victory would mean trouble for Trump and his populist political base. It also would narrow the Republicans' already slim majority in the US Senate, possibly making it harder for Trump to advance his policy agenda.

Polls opened at 7 am (1300 GMT) in the Alabama special election for the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Sessions, who became US attorney general in the Trump administration.

Voters interviewed outside the polls in Montgomery, the state capital, on a chilly Tuesday morning said the sexual misconduct allegations against Moore were inconclusive.

"They're speculation. These are 40-year-old charges and they should have come out before the election," said Robert Morrison, 74.

Geneva Calvert, 80, said she was voting for Moore because he would help advance Trump's agenda. "He stands for what President Trump stands for," she said.

Peggy Judkins, 48, said she voted for Jones and that Moore was a bad candidate even before "all this molesting stuff" made national headlines.

"Moore got thrown out of office two or three times before," she said. "So why would you put him back in? That's crazy."

Republicans have been bitterly divided over whether it is better to support Moore to protect their Senate majority or shun him because of the sexual allegations.

TRUMP TWEETS MOORE SUPPORT

Trump has strongly backed Moore but several other Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have distanced themselves from the candidate.

"Roy Moore will always vote with us. VOTE ROY MOORE!" Trump said in a Twitter post in which he criticized Jones as a potential "puppet" of the Democratic congressional leadership.

Moore has been accused by multiple women of pursuing them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30's, including one woman who said he tried to initiate sexual contact with her when she was 14. Moore has denied any misconduct and

Reuters has not independently verified any of the accusations.

The allegations come amid an unprecedented wave of sexual misconduct accusations against men in power. Trump also faces such allegations and has denied them.

On the eve of Tuesday's election, Moore was joined on the campaign trail by Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist. Bannon framed the Alabama election as a showdown between establishment elites and populist power and excoriated Republicans who declined to support Moore.

"There's a special place in hell for Republicans who should know better," he said.

Moore, who was twice removed from the state Supreme Court for refusing to abide by federal law, has made conservative Christian beliefs a centrepiece of his campaign and sought to energize evangelical Christians in Alabama. He has said homosexual activity should be illegal and has argued against removing segregationist language from the state constitution.

Moore told the rally on Monday: "I want to make America great again with President Trump. I want America great, but I want America good, and she can't be good until we go back to God."

RICE: REJECT BIGOTRY

Without mentioning Moore by name, Republican former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an African-American who grew up in Alabama, issued a statement on Monday calling the special election "one of the most significant in Alabama's history. "She urged Alabama voters to "reject bigotry, sexism, and intolerance."

A Fox News Poll conducted on Thursday and released on Monday put Jones ahead of Moore, with Jones potentially taking 50% of the vote and Moore 40%. Fox said 8% of voters were undecided and 2% supported another candidate.

An average of recent polls by the RealClearPolitics website showed Moore ahead by a slight margin of 2.2 percentage points.

No Democrat has held a US Senate seat from Alabama in more than 20 years. In 2016, Trump won the state by 28 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Jones has touted a record that includes prosecuting former Ku Klux Klan members responsible for the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four girls were killed.

He spent the past week rallying African-Americans, the most reliably Democratic voters in the state, and hammering Moore in television ads. He has told supporters his campaign is a chance to be on the "right side of history for the state of Alabama."

"Judge Moore has been consistently wrong about the Constitution," Jones said to reporters after casting his ballot on Tuesday at a Baptist church in Birmingham. "I don't think Roy Moore is going to win this election."

If Jones wins on Tuesday, Republicans would control the Senate by a slim 51-49 margin, giving Democrats momentum ahead of the November 2018 congressional elections, when control of both chambers of Congress will be at stake.

Moore may find a chilly reception in Washington if he wins. Republican leaders have said Moore could face an ethics investigation if Alabama voters send him to the US Senate.

If Moore wins, Democrats have signalled they may try to tar Republicans as insensitive to women's concerns at a time when sexual harassment allegations have cost many prominent men their jobs.