WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Roy Moore’s defeat in Alabama’s special election means that the Texas senator Ted Cruz will easily retain his status as the most despised person in the United States Senate, congressional insiders confirmed on Wednesday.

According to those insiders, Cruz had been secretly hoping that Moore’s election would displace him from his unenviable position as the most vilified pariah in the upper chamber.

“Cruz was praying that, if Moore got in, that might change the daily conversation around here from ‘Who has to sit next to Ted?’ ” one Republican colleague said.

Cruz, whom colleagues deem even more insufferable than such other senatorial ass-clowns as Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton, was reportedly “distraught” upon learning that Moore would not be joining him in the U.S. Senate.

“Ted was absolutely positive that Roy would have been more hated than he is,” one Senate colleague said. “But, to tell you the truth, it would have been close.”