white communities. but they are looking for the strong republican turnout to stay in their corner and not cross over to doug jones who is not only needing support from democrats, black voters through the black belt through places like jefferson county and the outskirts of birmingham but he also needs those voters, chris. they are just as confident in this race. and they believe that tonight just about nine hours from now that they re going to come out with a victory themselves. i m so fascinated by the turnout. everyone says turnout is important. they say that every single race. but you almost never have a december special election. right? that sort of argues against it. special elections in general don t do well. as they struggle to get voters, the secretary of state i know was predicting what he called a modest turnout. maybe 25%. is it clear at this point whether or not all this attention and this unlikely nail biter has left voters energized
moore is now trailing the democratic candidate doug jones by 8 points ahead of that december special election. cnn s nick valencia on the ground in alabama for us. nick, what are you expecting to hear today? hey there, kate. we do expect to hear from kayla moore who has as you mentioned stood by her husband throughout these allegations, at least two sexual assault allegations, but it was yesterday moore supporters denied this saying that it is moore who is the victim, that his character is being assassinated, and he s being framed by the gop establishment as well as the left wing media. it s interesting because the campaign says that the press has not been asking about the issues, but it s moore that has not talked about the issues of the state of alabama since these allegations surfaced. yesterday the bizarre press conference took a bizarre turn. judge roy moore deny he dated teenage high school girls when in his 30s. you read his letter. can he speak for himself
bannonism can come sweep america and we can elect all of your candidates. to be the first horse in the race accused of pursuing underage women is not a good look. so i think it would be good for donald trump to come out and say, look, i ming about making sure we have public servants who are fighting for the little guy, who want to make america great again. i think roy moore is a distraction. that would be a smart thing to do. it might risk him some backlash in alabama, for sure, but i don t know it puts alabama at risk of becoming a blue state in a presidential election, first of all. and i don t think in the end a bunch of trump voters will abandon trump because he says this guys is a bridge too far. i don t think it hurts trump. david, what do you think about to have senator roy moore walking around the u.s. senate? bad. it s bad? it s bad. i think it s a message i think if he does win, i think there will be a move, as you heard, not to seat him and then to remove him. alte
tips on how to do it better next time, including to keep his eyes straight on the camera, which was one of the weirdest parts of the marco rubio water incident. i thought trump s was a little bit smoother because he was like where is the water. that s true. marco rubio handled it pretty well. when rubio did it, it was almost like he tried to pretend he wasn t doing it. right. like no one would see it. more substantively, david, let me ask you, president trump avoided a question about roy moore shouted at him. i understand that. he wanted to focus on the speech. that was discipline and i totally get it, but at some point isn t he going to have to come out and say something about roy moore? i don t think so. look, jake, i think the roy moore issue is easily dealt with and best dealt with by the folks in alabama. the governor of alabama pushed up the election, she has the ability to delay the election. she can postpone this election, take everyone out of this misery, have a ne
and that s all the press wants to talk about. reporter: moore maintaining his innocence as his attorneys threaten to sue the alabama media group and the washington post, the first to report the claims. moore s lawyer indicating the mounting pressure for his client to step aside is not likely to persuade him. i do not think he s going to drop out and if in satisfactory these things are not true, the most appropriate thing for him to do would be to push fort forward. reporter: senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has now talked to president trump. earlier he called on moore to withdraw. i d like to save the seat and it s one heck of a dilemma when you ve got a completely unacceptable candidate bearing the name of your party within a month of the election. how was your trip, mr. president? reporter: president trump just back from his asia trip has so far been silent on the issue but the white house is saying mr. trump is monitoring the situation and they re weighing their