As Republican allies flee Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore amid several allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with teenage girls, his Democratic opponent Doug Jones released an ad on Monday with a simple message: Even Alabama Republicans have had enough.
The 30-second spot features self-identifed Republicans offering rapid-fire thoughts on Moore’s unacceptability, with lines like: “I’m a lifelong Republican, but I just can’t do it”; He’s already been removed from office twice”; and “Don’t decency and integrity matter anymore?”
With GOP institutional support collapsing, the “anyone but Moore” card is an obvious one for Jones to play. And the strategy has the advantage of deflecting attention away from Jones’s policy positions, some of which may be anathema to the voters he’s seeking to convert.
Moore’s task would become trickier, though, if a write-in campaign for Republican primary loser Luther Strange gained steam — or if any of the other long-shot strategies currently up in the air (recruiting Attorney General Jeff Sessions back to his old seat, delaying the election altogether) came to pass.
On Monday morning, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved the Senate race to “tossup” status, and House Speaker Paul Ryan became the latest high-profile Republican calling for Moore to drop out.
