Trump: Roy Moore Tried But He Should Concede

The Associated Press reports:

President Donald Trump is calling on Republican Roy Moore to concede after he lost the Alabama Senate race. Trump told reporters Friday as he departed the White House: “I think he should. He tried.” Trump endorsed Moore in the contentious race despite the allegations of sexual misconduct that shadowed Moore’s campaign. Moore has been discussing a possible recount.

Yeah, about that recount:

If the final total – including provisional and military ballots – are counted and the difference between the two candidates is less than 0.5 percent, an automatic recount provision could be triggered unless waived by the losing candidate. The state would pay for the recount.

If Jones’ margin of victory is more than 0.5 percent this scenario gets murkier. Alabama’s election handbook spells out several offices that are not included in state laws for contesting elections: lieutenant governor, U.S. senator, and U.S. representative.

There are other provisions, however, that indicate a candidate or political party could request a recount. If Moore is allowed to request a recount, it will be at his expense and that could be considerable.

Merrill told Fortune the cost of recount would be between $1 million and $1.5 million and the total amount must be put up when the request is made. Moore’s most recent financial report showed he had about $636,000 cash on hand.

From the National Review:

Again, just to reach the automatic recount threshold, Moore has to gain about 14,000 votes on Jones. There are only 8,000 active duty military personnel living in Alabama, with another 20,294 in the reserves.

To get the automatic recount, Roy Moore needs roughly half the combined military personnel in Alabama to be deployed overseas right now, for all of them to have voted in this election, and for him to have won all of their votes.

From the conservative Allah Pundit at Hot Air:



Moore convinced himself that God would speak through the results and simply can’t fathom the reality that he wasn’t chosen. That reminds me of his spokesman, Janet Porter, allegedly telling Nancy French in 2008 that she didn’t love America because she preferred the Mormon Mitt Romney to the evangelical Mike Huckabee in the GOP primary.

If Huckabee versus Romney was a litmus test on patriotism and Christian virtue, imagine how much more of a litmus test Moore versus Jones was. Surely the good lord prefers the former to the latter. So how can the vote totals be accurate?