Senior Republican officials in Alabama—like senior officials in the White House and, indeed, like President Trump himself—have refused to break with Roy Moore, their party’s nominee in next month’s special Senate election, who has been accused of pursuing, harassing, and abusing teen-age girls when he was in his thirties. Jim Zeigler, the state auditor, called the allegations “much ado about nothing.” Ed Henry, a state representative, said that there should be legal consequences for the women who came forward to describe their experiences with Moore. And last week the state Republican Party issued a statement reaffirming its support for the candidate. No notable Republican organization in the state had backed away from the candidate until Friday, when the Birmingham chapter of the Young Republicans of Alabama issued its own statement, revoking its endorsement of Moore. On Saturday, the Young Republican Federation of Alabama—of which the Birmingham chapter is a member—followed suit.

On Monday, I spoke by phone with David Wisdom, a twenty-five-year-old law student, and Michael Bullington, a twenty-three-year-old supply-chain-procurement specialist, both of whom belong to the Greater Birmingham Young Republicans of Alabama. Wisdom, who describes himself as “very conservative,” voted for Donald Trump last November. Bullington, who is staunchly anti-abortion, opted to write in Marco Rubio instead. Both identify as devout Christians. Neither has ever voted for a Democrat. They spoke to me about their group’s decision to withdraw its support of Moore, which has not yet drawn a public or private response from Party elders.

“We’re asked to choose the lesser of two evils,” Bullington said, referring to Moore and his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones. “But many young conservatives here are saying, ‘Why choose evil at all?’ If you have uneasiness about a candidate, don’t vote for them. Write in somebody. I mean, I’ve written in my dad before.”

“It’s a really frustrating moment to be a young Republican in Alabama,” Wisdom added.

Wisdom and Bullington, who have known each other since they were undergraduates together, at Auburn University, have channelled that sentiment into a podcast they launched a few months ago called “Young Alabama.” They describe it as “hot takes from young guys about #ALPolitics.” They record the show in Wisdom’s apartment, in Birmingham. Thus far, four of the podcast’s five episodes have waded through the moral morass of the Alabama Senate race.

“We’ve got a lot of problems,” Wisdom said at the start of a recent episode. “We're gonna attempt to fix them. But I don't know if that’s possible.” A few minutes later, they discussed Zeigler, the state auditor, who had offered a biblical justification for Moore's alleged pursuit of teen-age girls. (“Take Joseph and Mary,” Zeigler said. “Mary was a teen-ager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”)

WISDOM: I don’t think Zeigler is qualified to hold office at all, if he has this attitude about inappropriate relationships that adults may or may not have with teen-age girls— BULLINGTON: Which, by the way, is illegal. There are— WISDOM: This is what’s so frustrating to me, Michael. I can't believe that we're talking about this right now. BULLINGTON: It’s ridiculous. WISDOM: I can’t believe that this is the topic of conversation in Alabama politics.

Wisdom and Bullington aren’t wavering in their support for the Republican Party. They both eagerly discuss their concerns about “an overreaching federal government,” as Wisdom put it. “You look at farm land here,” he said. “There’s a fish in a pond next to it and the E.P.A. says it’s endangered and you can’t plant row crops beside it. Well, that’s fifty or sixty grand lost by a farmer that year.” Both men are ardent supporters of the Republican tax plan now being considered in Congress—which is heavily slanted to benefit businesses and the wealthy—and hope their party finds a viable way to scrap the Affordable Care Act. They also oppose any loosening of restrictions on abortion

And yet, on issues such as the cost of higher education, criminal-justice reform, drug laws, and same-sex marriage, Wisdom and Bullington consider themselves less doctrinaire. “Some young Republicans in Alabama don’t agree with it,” Wisdom said, of marriage equality. “But a lot of those same young Republicans think that what Judge Moore did in issuing a statement to all the probate judges to not grant those licenses was bad, because you’re disobeying the Supreme Court of the United States.” Bullington agreed. “For me and the people I interact with, same-sex marriage is not one of the top issues at play,” he said. “We’re less stuck on traditionalism.”

“Young Republicans have more of a libertarian flair than our older generations do,” Wisdom added.

Neither Wisdom nor Bullington liked Moore much before the allegations began to surface about his interest in and pursuit of teen-age girls. Bullington wasn’t planning to vote for him; Wisdom was open to it, though he had much preferred Moore’s primary opponent, Luther Strange. Earlier this month, when the Washington Post came out with its report on Moore’s past, Wisdom and Bullington, unlike many older Republicans in the state, did not dismiss it out of hand as “fake news” or the work of “the liberal media.”

“I was shocked,” Bullington said. “I called David immediately. The way the Post story was written, how they explained the way they corroborated their story, the full disclosures—I was immediately, like, ‘These allegations have some credibility.’ ” He went on, “this pushback against ‘liberal media,’ to me, that’s just a scapegoat tactic. The source of the information does not take away the value or validity of it.”

“When I look at these allegations,” Wisdom added, “I’m not looking at who stands to profit from this information or who found this out or who said it, or even if it came out the day before the election. Our generation of conservatives, we’re seeking out what is true.”

Bullington continued, “It’s so easy with the Internet and social media to quickly identify hypocrisy with public officials. I think young conservatives here are doing that more and more.” He added, concerning the claims that Moore engaged in sexual molestation and misconduct, “When you have these continual stories being corroborated, coupled with the fact that the Moore campaign hasn’t answered questions thoroughly on this—that they’ve been cryptic and then walked away from press conferences, or been combative—all of this gives us pause.”

Bullington said that he had felt similarly, last year, about Donald Trump, who has had more than twenty on-the-record accusers of his own. “I found all of that deeply disturbing,” Bullington said. “That’s a big reason I didn’t vote for him.” Wisdom voted for Trump anyway. “When the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape came out,” Wisdom said, “I was appalled, and Michael and I had many conversations about how awful it was.” But, Wisdom told me, the Moore allegations “hit closer to home for me, to be honest. When you’re talking about your home state, people where you’re from, abuses of power. It’s sickening.”