Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) is all but daring Roy Moore (R) for a rematch in the Alabama Senate race, Politico reports.

“Moore, who was defeated in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations, said this year that he believes the election was ‘stolen’ from him by Democrats and a disinformation program on social media.”

Said Jones: “If he really believes that and if the Republican Party really believes that then they all ought to just step aside, have a press conference with him and let’s just do it again.”

“Republicans landed a top-tier recruit Wednesday in a race critical to their hopes of holding the Senate in 2020, when GOP Rep. Bradley Byrne jumped into the campaign against the most vulnerable Democrat up for reelection, Alabama’s Doug Jones,” Politico reports.

“After his shocking special election win in 2017 in deeply conservative Alabama, defeating Jones is the GOP’s best opportunity to flip a Democratic-held seat — making the contest a vital insurance policy for the party to protect its majority, currently 53-47.”

New York Times: “Jones, the Democrat who was an unwitting beneficiary of misinformation tactics during a special election in Alabama in 2017, asked the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday to investigate the episodes… The overall effort, which cost $100,000, was underwritten through an intermediary by Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn.”

Said Jones: “Such deceptive tactics have no place in American politics and must be repudiated by those involved in our political system.”

“Republicans are certain they can win back the Alabama Senate seat they lost in spectacular fashion last year. They just aren’t sure whether Jeff Sessions is the one to do it,” Politico reports.

“Sessions’ name surfaced as a potential candidate immediately after he was dumped as attorney general this month. But he could be dogged by his strained relationship with President Donald Trump, who remains wildly popular in Alabama and savaged Sessions throughout his tenure at the Justice Department.”

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) told The Hill that is taking steps to mount a possible Senate bid in 2020 against incumbent Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL).

“The conservative House Republican is reaching out to colleagues in the Alabama delegation and driving around the state to gauge support from voters.”

Roy Moore accuser Tina Johnson lost her home in a fire that is now under investigation by an arson task force, the Birmingham News reports.

“Tina Johnson, who first came to public notice for accusing Senate candidate Roy Moore of grabbing her in his office in the early 1990s, said her home… caught fire Tuesday morning… By the time the flames were extinguished, Johnson and her family had lost everything they owned.”

Martin Wishnatsky, who worked for failed Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R), tells the Birmingham News that his background “is 100 percent Jewish” but that “he accepted Christ in his thirties.”

Said Wishnatsky: “I’m a Messianic Jew. That’s the term they use for a Jewish person who has accepted Christ.”

Roy Moore, the first Republican to lose a U.S. Senate race in Alabama in 25 years, moved to block state officials from certifying the victory of his Democratic rival on Thursday afternoon because of “systematic voter fraud,” the New York Times reports.

Politico notes that Moore has continued to fundraise by asking donors to contribute to his “election integrity fund,” pledging to pursue “voter fraud and other irregularities at polling locations throughout the state.”

Meanwhile, The Hill reports Moore “says he completed a lie detector test after the Alabama Senate election concluded to prove the allegations of sexual misconduct are untrue.”

The Associated Press: reports that the rift between President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions “still has not healed. Recently, Trump bemoaned the Republicans’ loss in a special election in Alabama and in part blamed Sessions, whose departure from the Senate to head to Justice necessitated the election.”

Alabama’s secretary of state announced that his office had received 4,967 provisional ballots and that “no additional ballots are eligible to be received,” the Washington Examiner reports.

That figure is “well below the number needed to trigger a recount, let alone overcome the 20,715-vote lead of Doug Jones.”

Washington Post: “Moore, who lost by 20,715 votes, is not in a position to ask for a recount. Alabama law does not trigger a recount unless the margin between two candidates is less than 0.5 percent; according to the latest count by the Associated Press, the margin between Jones and Moore is 1.5 percent.”

“Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, who sided with Moore’s campaign during several election controversies, has said that the election will be certified Dec. 28. But at the same time, Merrill’s office has had to brush off conspiracy theories promoted by pro-Moore websites, which have suggested that the results were tainted by fraud.”

“One theory, which went viral before being debunked by Snopes.com, was that multiple black voters were caught trying to vote with fake IDs. (More than 95 percent of black voters supported Jones, giving him his winning margin.) Another, also debunked quickly, was that vans of illegal voters were seen somewhere in the state.”