The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
●AL-Sen: The shocking pedophilia revelations regarding Republican nominee Roy Moore in the upcoming Senate special election have drawn astonishing condemnation from top national Republicans. However, major state Republicans have yet to desert their reprehensible nominee, and we can count GOP Gov. Kay Ivey among them when she said the following on Friday:
"I'm going to cast my ballot on December the 12th, and I do believe the nominee of the party is the one I'll vote for," Ivey said. "I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions. So that's what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore."
[...]
She was asked if she believed Moore's accusers.
"I certainly have no reason to disbelieve any of them," Ivey said. "The timing is a little curious. But at the same time, I have no reason to disbelieve them."
It represents breathtaking moral bankruptcy for Ivey to back a candidate whom she admits she believes is a pedophile simply because they'll further her party's quest for power, but this is the same sort of partisanship-over-everything attitude that put Donald Trump in the White House. However, a critical number of typical GOP voters may not share her stance, unlike in last year’s presidential race.
Change Research is the latest pollster to find Democrat Doug Jones surging into a lead. The firm says Jones is winning by 46-43, which represents an improvement for him compared Moore's 44-40 edge in their previous survey, which was in the field from Nov. 9 through Nov. 11 immediately as the scandal was breaking.
Pollsters have widely found that the revelations against Moore appear to have hurt him badly, though they disagree over just where things stand. Given the difficulty of polling in such a shifting environment, it's hard to know if Jones really has taken a lead or whether more Republican partisans will behave like their governor and hold their noses to vote for Moore.