I've become very involved in this race, working w/women in Alabama. My moods are swinging from positive for Jones (who I've supported since the primary) to despair over the outrageous and untrue statements said about him. This morning's poll gives me hope because the sample is much larger, and it documents that women are significantly more likely to vote for Jones. Turnout among moderate Republican women, Dems, of course, and Alabama's black community are critical.

When working on my own mindset, I remember Va a month ago, where polls showed an even race, but the actual result was huge for Dems.

The beliefs of Roy Moore are so extreme that it astounds me that he could become a US senator. Forget the sexual harassment claims. Moore is a LEADER in the personhood movement, giving ALL legal rights of a grown woman with three kids to a fertilized egg. The state would govern pregnancy, protecting the rights of the embryo.

It's all terrifying -- so terrifying that I forced myself to become educated on the rare third-trimester abortion last night. Not the statistics, which are about 1% nationally and 3 in Alabama last year, but the procedure itself.

In the new poll from Post-Schar collab at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University , 53% of voters in the larger sample of 749 likely voters, said Jones, a former federal prosecutor who prosecuted the Klan for the murder of four little girls in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing , had higher standards or personal moral conduct than Moore. In contrast, about a third of likely voters said Moore, who has cast his campaign as a "spiritual battle" with heavy religious overtones, had higher moral standards.

Among the 1 in 4 voters who said the candidates' moral conduct will be the most important factor in their vote, Jones led, 67% to 30%.

Alabama is a hugely Republican state, and Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 28 points in the presidential election. But Democrats said they were more enthusiastic about turning out for the special election. By 47% to 38%, more Democratic-leaning voters than Republican-leaning voters said it was "extremely important" to vote in the election. Democratic-leaners were also 12 points more likely to say they were following the race "very closely," and 10 points more likely to say they were "absolutely certain to vote." Read on about the details of this very thorough, data-rich portrait of the race. ~ Anne

Politico reports that President Donald Trump's near-endorsement of the sexually-accused Alabama Republican senate candidate Roy Moore came after intense conversations with senior Republicans and White House aides.

The White House advisers told Politico that the president "drew parallels between Moore’s predicament and the one he faced just over a year ago when, during the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Trump confronted a long line of women who accused him of harassment. He adamantly denied the claims."

Speaking with reporters as he departed for Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Trump couldn't have come closer to saying that he believed Roy Moore's declaration that all nine of his accusers are lying. In Trump's typically incoherent, repetitive way of speaking, he said: “Let me just tell you, Roy Moore denies it. That's all I can say. He denies it. And, by the way, he totally denies it,”

“I mean, if you look at what is really going on, and you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it,” Trump said. “He says it didn’t happen. And, you know, you have to listen to him also. You're talking about, he said 40 years ago this did not happen.”

Crushing any optimism that the White House would remain neutral or side with leading Republicans who have called for Moore to drop out of the race, Trump bashed Democratic candidate Doug Jones.

“I can tell you one thing for sure: We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat — Jones. I've looked at his record. It's terrible on crime. It's terrible on the border. It's terrible on the military. I can tell you for a fact, we do not need somebody that's going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad with the military, bad for the Second Amendment,” he said.

Tuesday late-night hosts addressed sexual misconduct allegations against both Charlie Rose and Roy Moore. CBS' Stephen Colbert led the parade, saying: "If all the sexual assault allegations coming out of the entertainment or the news industry have got you down, you can always take a break and distract yourself with the sexual assault allegations coming out of Washington.”

“For almost two weeks, Trump has faced repeated questions about his position on Roy Moore, and for two weeks Trump has done everything he could to avoid answering them,” NBC's Seth Meyers said. “Since the news about Moore first broke, we’ve been waiting to find out if Trump could summon at least a shred of decency and disavow a man accused of preying on teenage girls.

“Today, we do found that the old saying is true,” the host said. “Sexual predators of a feather flock together.”

“In fairness to Trump, who are you going to believe?,” Meyers asked. “Nine women who don’t know each other and whose stories have been corroborated by dozens of independent sources, or a guy who looks like the Marlboro Man’s deadbeat dad?”

Myers also addressed Trump's Tuesday argument that Dem. Doug Jones is soft on crime. The Guardian recaps: "“Soft on crime? You’re siding with an accused child molester over a guy who prosecuted the KKK.”

Related: President Trump and accusations of sexual misconduct: The complete list The Washington Post