Exit polls show white women backed Roy Moore despite child molestation allegations

REPUBLICAN Roy Moore was expected to be punished at the polls over allegations he preyed on teenage girls. But the votes had a surprising message.

THE day after the Alabama special election saw President Donald Trump’s pick Roy Moore rejected by the traditionally Republican state, one conservative commentator gave an unexpected reason behind the people’s decision.

“This was not a referendum on Trump,” Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt said on the network’s breakfast program. “I feel like it was a referendum on Harvey Weinstein.”

Ms Earhardt was referring to allegations of sexual misconduct that dogged Moore’s campaign.

The Republican’s nomination was rocked after reports he sexually assaulted teenage girls decades ago, while in his 30s.

The shocking allegations are believed to have played a big part in Moore’s loss and were expected to particularly deter female voters.

But exit polls provide a shocking insight into how women voted.

Despite the child molestation allegations, nearly two-thirds of white women voted for Moore.

Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt suggested the vote was ‘a referendum on Harvey Weinstein’. Picture: Fox News

Exit polls published by CNN showed overall women were in fact less likely to have voted for Moore, with 57 per cent favouring Democrat candidate Doug Jones and only 41 per cent voting for the Republican.

The results were flipped in the male vote with 42 per cent voting for Jones and 56 per cent favouring Moore.

But it’s when the vote was split by race that things got really interesting.

Black voters overwhelmingly backed the Democrat in the race, giving Roy Moore only 4 per cent of the vote, while white voters in the historically Republican state gave Moore 68 per cent of the vote and Jones 30 per cent.

However, most surprisingly, despite the sexual misconduct allegations, almost two-thirds of white women backed Roy Moore. Black women, on the other hand, sent a strong message to the questionable candidate with 98 per cent voting against him.

The vote, brought about by Attorney-General Jeff Sessions vacating the Senate seat, saw the state send a democrat to the Senate for the first time in 25 years.

When it came to voting, most white women supported Roy Moore. Picture: Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP

Throughout the campaign, Mr Trump enthusiastically backed Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, and appeared to lend him some campaign tips. Moore liberally borrowing from the president’s arsenal of tactics revelling in racially charged statements and attacks on the press and other “elites”.

But as much as he tried to brush them aside, the allegations kept coming up.

In her post-vote commentary, Ms Earhardt suggested the “horrific” allegations would have affected the vote.

“It was hard for women especially to go to the polls and vote for him, even though the allegations were just allegations and even though it happened so long ago,” she said.

But in the end the vote was not so much divided on gender lines, but on race.

President Donald Trump enthusiastically backed the Republican candidate. Picture: Susan Walsh/AP