Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore was defiant Monday night in a statement made to assembled media in Alabama. | Hal Yeager/AP Photo Poll: Moore should quit Alabama Senate race

A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows voters nationally find the allegations against Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore credible — and a majority thinks Moore should drop out of the race.

The poll — which was conducted prior to the most recent allegations against Moore leveled by Beverly Young Nelson, who said Monday that Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old — found 59 percent of voters say they considered the original allegations against Moore outlined in a Washington Post article last week very or somewhat credible. Just 17 percent say the allegations are "not too credible" or not credible at all. The remaining 23 percent don’t know or have no opinion.


There are partisan differences in national views of the Moore allegations, but even among Republican voters, more find the allegations credible than not. Nearly half of GOP voters, 49 percent, say the accusations against Moore are at least somewhat credible; just 3 in 10 say they are not too credible or not credible at all.

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Fully 60 percent of voters think Moore should not continue his campaign for Senate in light of these allegations, the poll shows. Only 16 percent think Moore should continue his campaign, and nearly 1 in 4, 24 percent, are undecided.

Half of Republicans think Moore shouldn’t continue his campaign — nearly double the 26 percent who think he should continue.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday said Moore “should step aside.”

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, took it a step further later Monday. “If he refuses to withdraw and wins,” Gardner said in a statement, “the Senate should vote to expel him, because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate.”

Moore, who defeated interim Sen. Luther Strange in the September GOP primary runoff, was defiant Monday night in a statement made to assembled media in Alabama. "I want to make it perfectly clear: The people of Alabama know me,” Moore said. “They know my character. They know what I've stood for in the political world for over 40 years. And I can tell you, without hesitation, this is absolutely false.”

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted Nov. 9-11, surveying 1,993 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents — Toplines: http://politi.co/2ADtyKs | Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2yZ4pNW