Likely voters in the December 12 special election are divided on whether the allegations against Republican candidate Roy Moore are true. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Poll: Moore trails Jones in Alabama Senate race The controversial Republican got 42 percent to Democrat Doug Jones' 50 percent in a new Fox News poll.

Democrat Doug Jones has an 8-point lead over embattled Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama special Senate election, according to a new poll released Thursday that shows voters are equally divided on the accusations of sexual misconduct against the GOP nominee.

The Fox News poll — conducted Monday through Wednesday — shows Jones leading Moore among likely voters, 50 percent to 42 percent. Just 2 percent would vote for another candidate, and 7 percent are undecided.


The special election is on Dec. 12. The Fox News poll is the first public survey conducted by live telephone interviewers since four women leveled the first allegations against Moore in a Washington Post story last week. Since then, a number of other women have come forward to allege that Moore physically assaulted them or made unwanted sexual advances — in many cases when the women were just teenagers. Moore has denied the most serious allegations of abuse and said that he did not generally date women in their teens.

Jones leads Moore in the Fox News poll, despite Alabama’s Republican lean, on the strength of his advantages among Democrats, young voters and women. Jones wins 91 percent of Democratic voters, while Moore is at 78 percent among Republicans. Only 3 percent of Democrats say they will vote for Moore, but about 13 percent of Republicans say they will vote for Jones.

Among voters under age 45, Jones has a 31-point lead, 61 percent to 30 percent. Moore has only a slight edge with voters 45 and older, 48 percent to 44 percent.

Moore leads Jones among male voters, 53 percent to 41 percent. But Jones has a wide advantage among women, 58 percent to 32 percent.

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Moore has a 19-point lead among white voters, 56 percent to 37 percent. Jones is competitive among white voters with a college degree — Moore leads by just 4 points among them — but Moore has a 64 percent to 29 percent lead among white voters without college degrees. Among white voters who identify as evangelical Christians, Moore leads, 73 percent to 20 percent.

Likely voters in the Dec. 12 special election are divided on whether the allegations against Moore are true, with 38 percent saying they believe the allegations, and 37 percent saying they don’t. Five percent of likely voters think it’s too soon to say, and 20 percent are undecided.

Nearly three-quarters of likely Moore voters, 74 percent, say they don’t believe the allegations against him; only 7 percent of Moore voters believe the allegations. Among likely Jones voters, 64 believe the allegations against Moore, and 10 percent do not.

Still, a 54 percent majority of voters say Moore should remain in the race. Just 38 percent of likely voters think Moore should drop out.

While members of the Senate Republican leadership from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner have called for Moore to drop out of the race, President Donald Trump has not gone that far. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s press secretary, said Thursday that the president believes “the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be.”

Trump is far more popular among Alabama GOP voters than McConnell, the Fox News poll shows. More than 9-in-10 Alabama Republicans, 91 percent, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. McConnell’s approval rating among Alabama Republicans is only 29 percent, with 59 percent disapproving.

The Fox News poll also pours cold water on a potential write-in candidacy from interim Sen. Luther Strange, whom Moore defeated in the GOP primary runoff in September. Strange would actually trail Jones by a slightly larger margin in a head-to-head matchup — 10 points, compared with Moore’s 8-point deficit.

And despite the allegations against Moore, the former chief judge of the state Supreme Court maintains higher image ratings than Strange. Fully 43 percent of likely voters view Moore favorably, compared with 50 percent who have an unfavorable opinion of him, while only 37 percent have a favorable opinion of Strange, and 54 percent view him unfavorably.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions — who resigned the seat earlier this year, triggering the special election — has a positive image rating: Fifty-one percent view him favorably, while 40 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the longtime Alabama politician.

Jones’ image rating is even stronger: Fifty-three percent of likely voters view him favorably, and 33 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic nominee.

The Fox News poll surveyed 649 likely voters, contacted from a list of all registered voters in Alabama, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.