Roy Moore is running again for U.S. Senate

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore Thursday announced he would seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate next year, bringing a new level of uncertainty and attention to the GOP fight for Democratic Sen. Doug Jones’ seat.

The announcement, widely-expected in Montgomery political circles, forces existing GOP campaigns to account for Moore’s base-driven politics and high name recognition, which usually spot him a significant portion of the GOP electorate.

But lingering allegations of harassment and inappropriate behavior with women, as well as a divisiveness that predated those accusations, could hinder him as it did in his run against Jones in 2017, a fact his Republican opponents will strive to highlight in the months ahead.  

From the president: Donald Trump to Roy Moore: Don’t run for Senate seat in Alabama again

U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne of Mobile; Rep. Arnold Mooney of Indian Springs and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville are running for the Republican nomination. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, also a Republican, plans to announce his plans next week. 

Moore goes into the race still facing accusations from nine women that he assaulted, harassed or acted inappropriately with them, mostly during his time as an assistant district attorney in Etowah County from 1977 to 1982. Moore denies the allegations. The women have stuck to their stories. Leigh Corfman, who alleges that Moore had sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was 32, has sued Moore for defamation. The case is pending in Montgomery Circuit Court.

An email seeking comment was sent to Corfman’s attorney on Wednesday.

The former chief justice has unusually high name recognition for a politician but remains a polarizing figure. A survey of Republican voters released in April by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy found Moore had a plurality of voters (27 percent) favoring him.

“He will certainly be one of the top two or three candidates,” said Lance Hyche, a Republican consultant who is not currently working for any Senate campaign. “He’s historically had 30 to 35 percent of the vote, whatever he runs for. I see no reason for his base of support to wane in this race.” 

But in that same poll, Moore also had a 29 percent unfavorability rating, the highest of candidates tested.

Moore cruised to victory in the Republican primaries for the U.S. Senate in the late summer and early fall of 2017. But he mounted a lackluster campaign for Senate before the Washington Post first reported on the allegations, and virtually disappeared from the trail afterward. Jones, riding a wave of Democratic enthusiasm, easily outraised him and ran a center campaign aimed at appealing to suburban voters. In the end, high turnout for Jones in Democratic strongholds and the flipping of Lee and Tuscaloosa counties helped secure his win on Dec. 12, 2017. Moore’s strongest counties generally had lower turnout than Jones’

Previous election: Enthusiastic Democratic voters delivered Doug Jones a victory

“I think a lot of people resent Moore and his antics,” said David Mowery, a political consultant based in Montgomery who helped run Jefferson County Circuit Judge Bob Vance’s campaign against Moore in 2012. “I think you have to highlight that. If you’re Merrill, you want to say ‘I’m all those things without the crazy.’ If you’re Byrne, you want to say ‘(Moore’s) too risky. We can’t a flyer on that.’”  

Before his 2017 loss, Moore had a tendency to underperform the Republican ticket. In his race for chief justice in 2012, Moore got just 52 percent of the vote in a year when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney got nearly 61 percent.

High turnout tends to dampen Moore’s performance at the ballot box. Moore in 2006 lost the Republican gubernatorial nomination to then-Gov. Bob Riley. A little over 38 percent of voters cast ballots in that primary, with about half the votes cast on the Republican side. In 2010, Moore finished fourth in a seven-person Republican gubernatorial field, where total turnout was 32 percent, with about 61 percent of ballots cast going to the Republican.

By contrast, Moore won two low turnout races in the 2017 Republican race for U.S. Senate. Just 18 percent of voters cast ballots in August primary that year, while just 15 percent voted in the runoff that September. About 41 percent voted in the December Senate election, narrowly won by Jones.

Senator Doug Jones visits the site of the Booker T. Washington Magnet High School fire in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday August 24, 2018. (Photo: Mickey Welsh / Advertiser)

Moore’s divisiveness would probably give Jones his best shot at re-election, but the incumbent senator — the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in 25 years — faces an uphill struggle, as long as Donald Trump remains popular in Alabama. Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster with Anzalone Liszt Grove in Montgomery, said the presidential electorate could bring out more of the African-American and youth voters who would tend to support Democrats.

“Doug Jones is the underdog, but he was the underdog in the special election as well, and he probably relishes the role of underdog,” he said.

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