election. one thing on the 49% believe the allegations or most of them to be true, 45% false. i found this fascinating. it speaks to how partisanship has won no matter who wins. 9 in 10 people who voted for roy moore said the allegations are false. 9 in 10 people who voted for doug jones say the allegations are true. what does it tell you? it s one state, but two totally different worlds where facts are whether or not they re-enforce what you already believe. looking at the exit poll data as it comes out here, when you look at this, you see two totally different electorates. let s take another issue, the allegations, abortion, we re learning now a majority of voters who voted say abortion should be illegal. 4 in 10 say it should be legal. obviously, in that case, you look at that and say okay, advantage moore. yeah, and i think if we break things down to all these little side issues, we might get a little distracted from the big picture here, which is that this is a red state. a lo
president trump, as you said, has retired to the residence part of the white house. i m told he s going to watch the returns come in. not surprisingly, he spends a lot of hours watching television from the residence and the west wing, but i m told he s going to be following these returns from alabama once they come in. he s going to get regular updates from the rnc. that was one big change. the republican national committee had pulled its funding from the alabama race, but when the president got back in, the rnc got back in. he s going to be getting updates as well as likely from steve bannon. of course, his former chief strategist is still very much in conversation with the president. often on the phone. the president, of course, watching this. he s all invested, all in on this chilly evening in washington. but the reality is, this race is out of his control at this point. so that s one of the worries and wonders here at the white house. did he go too far in on this? he ll find out go
come in with his staff and with his family. now, as for prepared remarks, what we can expect from doug jones later tonight, i m told they have not prepared any sort of speech yet, that once the candidate here, he ll sit down with his campaign team. they ll go over what they want to say. win or lose, according to the campaign chairman, i m told jones will go back to a theme he has been hitting pretty hard on the campaign trail, one of unity and one of working together. and then i m told we re expecting at some point tonight, moore and jones will speak by phone. jake. alex marquardt with doug jones headquarters in birmingham, alabama. and dana, one of the big questions about tonight is if moore wins, it will be a sign, i think, to a lot of people that tribalism trumps everything. deep red republican state, s a - because he s the republican candidate, can he convince voters, has he convinced enough voters that all of these
issue voters. they vote on the issue of life and partisan i.d. is going to be what rules the day here. so i think it s important to know how people feel about the allegations. it s important to know how people feel about president trump. but i think that issues like abortion actually tell us a whole lot about who is voting and why they re voting. i don t think we can prejudge the outcome, but it s incredibly relevant and perhaps determinative in a race like this. michael. it s very hard to see consistent trends in the preliminary data. you really need to know the turnout information. i see inconsistencies, 49% believe the accusations. that s bad for moore because only 45% don t. yet 55% say they weren t a factor. that would be good for moore. my question is, how could you believe these charges and still say you re voting for roy moore? that to me is something that would be absolutely impossible to square. so people at this stage, i think, can read into the data whatever they want t
that when polls close in 12 minutes they re going to have this? i would say they have a better understanding of the alabama electorate than the national media. and they have hit that they have hit that sweet spot over and over again. they have turned mcconnell, who is the senate republican leader, into a liability. they helped drum up turnout. i think this is probably a warning to the republican establishment that bannon took this candidate, flawed as he might be, and flawed in all of our hearts and our minds, and still was able to get him across the finish line with president trump. we re now talking about a new level, a new playing field that s going to be going forward when these candidates when you have primaries coming up next year and a lot of these candidates are going to be aligned with trump because they don t feel the establishment republicans are supporting the president enough. thank you all very much. stay with us because we are now ten minutes away from polls clos