Polls indicate uncertainty in Alabama Senate race
Just one day ahead of Alabama's special election, different polls are yielding widely different results for who will win the Senate seat: Democratic candidate Doug Jones or Republican candidate Roy Moore. An Emerson College poll released Monday has Moore holding out with a nine point lead, while a Fox News poll also released Monday places Jones ahead of Moore by ten points.
A CBS News poll from December 3 indicated that Moore was leading Jones, 49 percent to 43 percent.
The vastly different polling results reflect an uncertain political landscape in Alabama. The last Democratic senator to represent Alabama, Howell Heflin, retired in 1997. But the Moore campaign has been plagued with allegations of Moore's sexual misconduct involving underage teenage girls.
The youngest of his multiple accusers claims Moore inappropriately touched her when she was 14 and he was 32 at the time. The legal age of consent in Alabama, both at the time of the allegations and now, is 16. If true, the allegations would make Moore guilty of sexual abuse in the second degree under Alabama law.
The controversy surrounding the Moore campaign has given Democrats the rare opportunity to potentially win a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama. The unpredictable Senate contest will ultimately come down to voter turnout as both candidates scramble for support in the final hours of their campaigns.
Jones campaigned with Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, over the weekend while Moore, who has the support of President Trump but has largely disappeared from the campaign trail, gave a rare sit-down interview with a local Alabama television station.