A day after beleaguered Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore vowed to stay in the race despite allegations of sexual misconduct, hie wife on Friday offered a defiant defense laced with attacks on their political enemies.
Kayla Moore, who has been married to the Republican nominee for 32 years and runs the Foundation for Moral Law that he created, seconded her husband’s vow.
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“Let me set the record straight: Even after all the attacks against me, against my family, against the foundation, and now against my husband, he will not step down,” she said to applause from supporters standing behind her. “He will not stop fighting for the people of Alabama.”
Like her husband, Kayla Moore did not take questions from reporters.
The Moore campaign has hunkered down, avoiding interviews with reporters as pressure mounts for the former judge to drop out of the race. A Fox News poll released Thursday suggests that Moore trails Democrat Doug Jones by 8 percentage points in the special election to fill the seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Voters will decide December 12.
Related: Roy Moore: Allegations Are Completely False and Misleading
Moore has denied all wrongdoing since The Washington Post published a story last week quoting a woman who alleges that Moore undressed her in 1979 when she was 14 and he was 32. Another woman appeared at a news conference this week accusing Moore of trying to force her to have sex during the same general time period.
Several other women have said Moore dated them or showed interest in them when they were teenagers but over the legal age of consent.
Kayla Moore said her husband is a victim of the “liberal press,” Democrats, and the Washington Establishment.
“All of the very same people who were attacking President [Donald] Trump are also attacking us,” she said. “I personally think he owes us a thank-you. Have you noticed you’re not hearing too much about Russia?”
Moore claimed the campaign has received overwhelming support.
“We’ve just been inundated with so much positive response from the people of Alabama,” she said. “For the record, it’s about 90 percent positive. And most of the negative is from out of state. The people of Alabama understand what is going on here.”
Moore urged voters to focus on the issues and the “ultra-liberal” record of Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney who was a Democratic Party delegate for former President Barack Obama. She contrasted that with her husband, who she said has a 30-year record of defending Alabama values.
Related: Roy Moore: ‘I’ll Quit Standing When They Lay Me in That Box and Put Me in the Ground’
“The people of Alabama know him,” she said. “They have seen what he has done, fighting for — fighting for life, fighting against abortion, fighting for acknowledgment of God, fighting for traditional marriage, and fighting to protect the Second Amendment. And fighting for our rights given by God, protected by the Constitution.”
Moore thanked Alabamians for being “smarter than they think you are” and warned them to be prepared to be called names. She noted that her husband is a West Point graduate and veteran.
“He has always been an officer and a gentleman,” she said. “He is a loving father and a grandfather. And most important, he is a Christian.”
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