Trump loses bet on Moore

Photo: The Canadian Press

Rarely has a sitting president rallied behind such a scandal-plagued candidate the way Donald Trump did with Alabama's Roy Moore. And rarely has that bet failed so spectacularly.

Moore's defeat Tuesday in Alabama — as stalwart a Republican state as they come — left Trump unapologetic and his political allies shell-shocked. Trump had dug in on his support for Moore after a wave of allegations about the former judge's alleged sexual misconduct with teenagers when he was in his 30s, becoming one of the candidate's most ardent national supporters in the race's closing days.

Now, out of the wreckage of Moore's defeat to Democrat Doug Jones, Trump faces mounting questions about the limits of his own political capital. He'll head into his second year in office with one less Republican senator, narrowing a margin already so slim that it has so far left him unable to push major legislation through Congress. Democrats, who started the year as a deeply wounded minority party, press toward the midterm elections with a burst of momentum from the most unlikely of states.

To be sure, the Alabama race was highly unusual, and as with all special elections, there's no guarantee it will prove to be a barometer for contests a year from now. A perfect storm of controversies helped Jones overcome Alabama's strong Republican bent, most notably the sexual misconduct allegations that surfaced against Moore. The matter left the Republican Party deeply divided over whether holding a Senate seat was worth the potential long-term risks of supporting Moore.

Some Republicans did pull their support from Moore after the allegations surfaced, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Many more GOP officials in Washington privately preferred the prospect of a Moore defeat over having to deal with daily questions about his actions and the possible cloud of a Senate ethics investigation hanging over the party.

But Trump is the Republican Party leader, and he jumped in with both feet. In a moment of national reckoning over sexual misconduct, where hardly a day passes without a prominent man being ousted from a powerful position, the president made it impossible for the GOP to disassociate itself from Moore and the accusations swirling around him.

Trump's immediate response to Jones' victory was a tweet congratulating him Tuesday night, surprisingly magnanimous for a president who lashes out at the smallest perceived slight and often seems to prioritize winning above all else. But by Wednesday, Trump was on the defensive, reminding his followers that he had originally endorsed Moore's Republican primary opponent, Sen. Luther Strange.

It's far from certain if Trump feels the same way after the Alabama race. The president seems more naturally attuned to other political outsiders and is well-aware that his command over a sizeable swath of the GOP primary electorate makes him a powerful player in determining the party's direction in upcoming elections. Whether he can transfer his own political good fortunes to those candidates remains the unanswered question.