Doug Jones Urges Roy Moore to ‘Move On’ After Alabama Senate Race

Making his first rounds on the Sunday political talk shows as Alabama’s senator-elect, Democrat Doug Jones urged his Republican opponent Roy Moore to concede in the race.

“I think it’s time to move on,” Jones told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union. “Alabama has spoken. It was a close election, there’s no question about that, but elections can be close sometimes. But now it’s time to heal. Now it’s time to move on and go to the next thing.”

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election showed Jones defeated Moore by 1.5 percentage points, making him the first Democrat in Alabama elected to the Senate in a quarter of a century. But Moore, who became embroiled in controversy after allegations that he pursued women romantically when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s, has yet to concede the race.

In a video message released Wednesday, he said that the current vote count does not include military and provisional ballots, and that is why he is waiting on the certification of the votes from Alabama’s secretary of state. The votes are expected to be certified between Dec. 26 and Jan. 3. But Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said it was “highly unlikely” these ballots would result in any significant change.

On Friday, Moore sent a fundraising email asking for contributions to his “election integrity fund” to investigate voter fraud, according to the Associated Press, and writing that the battle is “not over.”

Jones, who cannot be sworn in to the Senate until the votes have been certified, told Tapper he is proceeding as though the votes will certify his victory and is starting to build out his team.

“We’re ready, we’re starting to put our team together to take over and try and get in there as soon as possible,” he said.