Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones cried “election fraud” Wednesday after Alabama voters picked Democratic candidate Doug Jones over Republican rival Roy Moore for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ former U.S. Senate seat.
The Infowars publisher called into question the results of Tuesday’s special election in the wake of Mr. Moore losing a race widely considered a referendum on the Republican Party and President Trump in particular.
“The election was clearly stolen,” he said during Wednesday afternoon’s broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, his popular internet and radio program made notorious for peddling misinformation and fake news.
Opponents used bogus polls to skew expectations and cast ballots in the names of deceased voters to defeat Mr. Moore, “The Alex Jones Show” host claimed without evidence.
“The swamp has struck back big time in Alabama. Massive evidence of election fraud,” he said during Wednesday’s broadcast.
“This is a great example, a great exercise in the art of dirty politics, and they’re just getting more and more desperate,” he said.
Mr. Moore lost by a slim margin to the Democratic candidate Tuesday evening, according to preliminary results, notwithstanding garnering the support of influential Republicans including Mr. Trump and the president’s former senior advisor, Steve Bannon, among others.
Reacting to the outcome Wednesday, The Alex Jones Show host claimed that skewed polls were circulated prior to the election in order to create “a fake bandwagon effect to make people feel like they’re going to be losers if they go for who they really want.”
“And then they just came in, baby, and as they do all over the country, had the dead people vote and had the folks bussed in from those Democratic areas, and they stole the election when my research shows Roy Moore probably would have won by six [or] seven points,” Mr. Jones said.
“They buried Roy Moore under record amounts of vicious campaign ads, total demonization, false reports. The entire swamp, Republican and Democratic parties, ganged up on Moore. That was the program. That was the operation. And so they’re heralding this as a great sign that they’re going to retake things in 2018,” he added.
Alabama’s top election official, Secretary of State John Merrill, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Wednesday. Mr. Merrill previously said “the people of Alabama have spoken” and that it was “highly unlikely” Mr. Moore would win the contest.
Mr. Jones first gained notoriety for his opinions on the 2012 mass-shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and again last year for propagating baseless claims linking the Democratic Party to a human-trafficking ring allegedly operated beneath a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Jones reaches about 50 million people each week through his broadcasts and Infowars website, according to his own statistics. Mr. Trump praised the host’s reputation during an appearance on his program in 2015, and Roger Stone, the president’s former campaign advisor, appeared on “The Alex Jones Show” as recently as Wednesday’s broadcast.
“The president says to me last time I talked to him, he said, ’Alex, they make it harder and harder for us to talk, but I want you to know this — I want you to keep it up, I want you to continue what you’re doing,’” Mr. Jones said Wednesday.
The White House did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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