Shelby after Moore loss: GOP ‘dodged that bullet’

“Roy Moore would have been very toxic, very controversial, and may have tried to become the face of the Republican Party,” Shelby said at the Capitol, according to The Washington Post’s Robert Costa.

“So we dodged that bullet.”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) at the Cap just now: “Roy Moore would have been very toxic, very controversial, and may have tried to become the face of the Republican Party. So we dodged that bullet.”

— Robert Costa (@costareports) December 13, 2017

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Democrat Doug Jones pulled off an upset victory over Moore Tuesday night in the race to fill the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, ending a bitter contest marked by sexual misconduct allegations against Moore.

After allegations emerged last month that Moore pursued sexual and romantic relations with teenage girls when he was in his 30s, the Senate race grew unusually tight for reliably conservative Alabama.

Moore, who denied the allegations, garnered a reputation in Alabama as a staunch evangelical conservative, and vowed on the campaign trail to bring his brand of insurgent politics to Washington.

Shelby delivered a firm rebuke of Moore on Sunday, however, saying on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he could not vote for the former Alabama Supreme Court justice and that his state “deserves better.”

Jones’s victory on Tuesday made him the first Democrat elected to the Senate in Alabama in 25 years.