Republicans made a series of unsuccessful decisions months before embattled GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore was accused of sexual misconduct that led to Democrats picking up a deep-red seat.

It all began with President Donald Trump choosing then-GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

New York Times reporter Alex Burns laid out all of the missteps in a Monday Twitter thread.



Well before allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers changed the conversation around Alabama's special election, the GOP made a number of questionable choices that ended with Republicans losing a virtually guaranteed Senate seat in the deep-red state of Alabama.

New York Times reporter Alex Burns posted a series of tweets on those "extraordinarily unsuccessful series of choices" Monday night, laying out all the moves that culminated with Democratic nominee Doug Jones finding himself as Alabama's next senator-elect late Tuesday night.

It began with with President Donald Trump's decision to name then-Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who held the Alabama seat that Jones and his Republican challenger Roy Moore fought for, as attorney general. Republicans, facing a series of decisions for what to do with the seat, miscalculated.

Burns went through each decision in "choose-your-adventure" form.

Jones defeated Moore, alleged of sexual misconduct with teenagers when he was in his 30s, by roughly 1.5 points in Tuesday's election.

That's a drastic change from 2016 when Trump defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by nearly 30 points in the state.