Cruz on whether Senate should expel Moore if he wins: ‘Of course not’

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday that he does not think Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore should be expelled from the upper chamber should he win despite allegations of sexual misconduct.

“Of course not,” Cruz said when asked on Fox News’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” if Moore should be thrown out of the Senate if he wins the Dec. 12 special election. “We’ve got to respect the will of the voters.”

“If the voters of Alabama choose to elect him, for some Washington politicians to say that we don’t care what the voters say, I think that would be a mistake,” Cruz added.

Asked about the allegations of sexual misconduct against Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Cruz said they were a source of “concern” and called them a “serious, serious problem.”

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a number of Senate Republicans have called for Moore to drop out of the race after several women said Moore, 70, pursued them romantically when they were teenagers and Moore was in his 30s. In one instance, a woman said Moore initiated a sexual encounter when she was 14. 

Recent polls have shown that a large number of voters think Moore should be expelled from the chamber if elected in December.

Despite a temporary drop behind Democrat Doug Jones, Moore now leads in the polls by an average of 2 points. 

Cruz, who initially supported Moore, withdrew his support earlier this month after the allegations, saying that claims of sexual misconduct should be looked at by prosecutors.

“This is an issue that the voters have in front of them and they’ll make a decision. I think we need to respect the will of the voters,” Cruz said Thursday.