For Mitch McConnell, Tuesday was about as bad as it could get. 
 
 A vulnerable incumbent senator, Luther Strange of Alabama, lost handily to Roy Moore, who used the Senate leader as his campaign punching bag. McConnell pulled the plug — again — on repealing Obamacare. One of his close allies, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), announced his retirement. 
 
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 And President Donald Trump is back on McConnell’s case, dubbing him “weak” at a private dinner with conservative activists on Monday evening. 
 
 McConnell’s job is in no immediate danger, and he hopes to pivot quickly to tax reform. Yet months of woes are now taking their toll on the GOP leader’s agenda, and his caucus. 
 
 “It’s been a hard summer for all of us,” admitted Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP senator. 
 
 Asked Tuesday whether he was having a “tough day,” McConnell ignored the question. And that was before Corker announced his retirement and Moore won. 
 
 “We haven’t given up on changing the American health care system,” McConnell said. “We’re not going to be able to do that this week, but it still lies ahead of us, and we haven’t given up on that.” 
 
 McConnell’s long-shot bid to save Strange, who had Trump’s backing as well, failed spectacularly as the former Alabama attorney general was trounced by Moore in the deep red state. And that soon could be a daily problem for McConnell. Moore, twice ousted as a judge on the Alabama Supreme Court for defying federal edicts, has openly said he wants to dump McConnell as the top Senate Republican. 
 
 “Judge Roy Moore in the U.S. Senate means the END of Mitch McConnell’s reign as Majority Leader,” Moore vowed in one fundraising pitch. Moore now faces Democrat Doug Jones in the Dec. 12 general election. 
 
 Moore’s win came just hours after McConnell, faced with unwavering opposition from a trio of his GOP colleagues, was forced to ditch the latest GOP proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare. McConnell’s choices were grim: Hold another failed vote, or concede another defeat. 
 
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 McConnell chose to call it quits and perhaps try again next year. Yet it was another embarrassing setback in McConnell’s failed months-long effort to overturn the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and it came at an even heavier price this time — more problems for McConnell from the occupant of the Oval Office. 
 
 Trump spent much of August publicly bashing McConnell but stopped after the two held a private meeting several weeks ago. But now the president is bad-mouthing the Senate leader again. 
 
 During a dinner with conservative activists on Monday night at the White House, Trump laid into McConnell, according to two attendees. Trump told the activists that McConnell was “weak” because he couldn’t pass the GOP health care plan, and the president complained at length about how Republicans had failed him on the issue, while asking the activists what they should do next. 
 
 Trump added that he was disappointed in McConnell for not changing the Senate filibuster rule so that only 51 votes are needed to pass legislation, also dubbing McConnell’s resistance to the idea as “weak.” That criticism does not ring true to Senate Republicans, given that Democrats have barely been able to use the filibuster due to McConnell mostly holding party-line votes. 
 
 A McConnell spokesman declined to comment. 
 
 A person briefed on the meeting noted Trump took aim at far more than McConnell during the meeting, distancing himself from Strange and whacking Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as well. Trump called McCain “disgraceful” on health care and mocked his thumbs-down gesture on the Senate floor against a GOP proposal in July, complete with a facial expression, attendees said. 
 
 After the race was called Tuesday, McConnell vowed to support Moore in the general election despite the candidate’s opposition to him personally. 
 
 “He ran a spirited campaign centered around a dissatisfaction with the progress made in Washington. I share that frustration,” McConnell said of Moore in a statement. “Senate Republicans will be as committed to keeping Alabama’s Senate seat in Republican hands with Roy Moore as we were with Luther Strange.” 
 
 McConnell’s support in the Republican Conference remains solid despite what Trump, Moore and former Trump aide Steve Bannon say about him. Bannon has launched a crusade against the Senate leader and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Ohio) since leaving the White House. 
 
 “It’s not even a close question there,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said of McConnell’s position. “It’s not easy being majority leader, which is why many people choose not to run for it.” 
 
 The way to put an end to anti-McConnell challengers, Cornyn said, is “you win. Really, it’s about that simple.” 
 
 After ushering through the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, McConnell has found himself in a box. Trump will receive the lion’s share of credit for legislative victories that McConnell or Ryan engineer, but the president has made clear he’ll blame the GOP leaders when bills falter. 
 
 Trump might turn to Democrats again in search of victories — as he did earlier this month to put off a fight over the budget and debt ceiling — which would again test McConnell and Ryan’s loyalty to the president. 
 
 Some Republicans said that at least in the case of Obamacare, McConnell was not to blame for the failure of the proposal pushed by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.). 
 
 “The whole health care thing right now was sort of inspired by Graham and Cassidy, and the president, who kept it alive. I don’t think Mitch has much ownership other than to try to see if there’s a path forward,” Thune said. 
 
 Thune added that Strange’s situation in Alabama was a “unique set of circumstances. I think everybody in a lot of these places, particularly primary voters, want to send a message to Washington.” 
 
 Strange was appointed to the seat by former Republican Gov. Robert Bentley, who later resigned in a sex scandal. Strange’s appointment didn’t sit well with Alabama voters. The Senate Leadership Fund, a pro-McConnell super PAC, dumped $9 million into the race in a bid to derail Moore, but he proved far too strong. And Trump’s endorsement of Strange proved to be too little, too late. 
 
 “What happens today in Alabama with Luther Strange has nothing to do with Mitch McConnell. It has everything to do with Alabama,” Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said before the results were tallied. 
 
 Personal loyalty to McConnell remains high among his colleagues. They remember him as a two-term chairman of the NRSC. He led the fight against former President Barack Obama for eight years. And he got Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, which is Trump’s only real win in Congress so far. 
 
 When it comes to who to blame for a difficult year with just a 52-seat majority, McConnell’s colleagues refuse to point to the majority leader as the source of the problem. They criticize each other, not McConnell. 
 
 “You can only fight with the troops that you’ve got,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said of McConnell’s predicament. ||||| Republican leaders are exploring a dramatic remedy to salvage the Alabama Senate seat as fresh polling shows Roy Moore's prospects fading fast. 
 
 With less than four weeks until the special election and no sign that the party’s besieged nominee will exit the race, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his top advisers are discussing the legal feasibility of asking appointed Sen. Luther Strange to resign from his seat in order to trigger a new special election. 
 
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 McConnell aides express caution, saying they're uncertain whether such a move, one of several options being discussed, is even possible. Yet the talks underscore the despair among top Republicans over relinquishing a seat in deep-red Alabama, further diminishing their slim Senate majority. 
 
 New GOP polling obtained by POLITICO suggests that Moore is cratering. A survey conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee after allegations emerged that Moore had engaged in sexual misconduct with teenagers showed him trailing Democratic candidate Doug Jones by 12 points. Other recent polling has the race closer. 
 
 McConnell’s team had been high on the idea of asking Jeff Sessions, who held the Alabama seat for two decades prior to becoming Attorney General, to run as a write-in candidate. But the committee polled the prospect of Sessions waging a write-in bid and the outcome was unfavorable, said three people familiar with the results. Party officials worry that a write-in candidacy would serve only to split the Republican vote and seal a Jones victory. 
 
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 Plus, Sessions isn't interested, according to several people who've spoken about it with him. He has received overtures from Republican lawmakers, including Richard Shelby, Alabama’s longtime Republican senator, who spoke with Sessions this week. 
 
 Republicans are engaged in a flurry of back-channel conversations. President Donald Trump spoke with McConnell on Wednesday morning and the Alabama race was a major topic of discussion, said several people briefed on the conversation. On Tuesday morning, Shelby spoke with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. During the discussion, Ivey dismissed the possibility of moving the date of the Dec. 12 election, an idea that had been floated by senior Republicans. 
 
 Also on Tuesday, the Alabama Republican congressional delegation met to walk through their options and opted to take a wait-and-see approach. None of the six members has withdrawn his or her endorsement of Moore. 
 
 The White House, meanwhile, is poring over survey results. Trump remained silent about the situation on Wednesday, ignoring questions from reporters about Alabama after he delivered extensive public remarks on his 12-day Asia tour. Vice President Mike Pence, his chief of staff, Nick Ayers, and the administration’s political director, Bill Stepien, are helping to steer the administration’s decision-making process on the Alabama race. 
 
 Moore, meanwhile, dug in. The candidate’s attorney, Phillip Jauregui, held a Wednesday afternoon news conference in which he challenged the account of an accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, who said earlier this week that Moore had assaulted her when she was 16. Jauregui pointed out that Nelson had said there had been no contact between her and Moore after the incident. In fact, he said, Moore was the presiding judge on a 1999 divorce judgment between Nelson and her husband. 
 
 Jauregui also disputed Nelson’s claim that Moore had once signed her high school yearbook with the inscription, “Love, Roy Moore D.A.” 
 
 "Judge Moore says there is no way in the world that's his handwriting," Jauregui said, adding that Moore’s team was asking for the yearbook to be released in order for a handwriting analysis to be conducted. 
 
 "I've been with him in probably over 100 different meetings and been around probably an excess of 10,000 different ladies ... not one time have I ever seen him act even remotely inappropriate against any woman," he added. 
 
 Within moments after the news conference wrapped up, a new Moore accuser emerged. Tina Johnson told al.com that Moore grabbed her buttocks during a 1991 meeting at Moore’s law office. 
 
 "He didn't pinch it; he grabbed it," Johnson told the outlet. 
 
 And hours later, The Washington Post published a new account of two other women who said Moore pursued them when one was almost 18 and the other 22 working at a local mall. 
 
 Moore has denied sexually assaulting or harassing any woman, though he has said he might have dated teenagers when he was in his 30s. 
 
 The Alabama Republican Party was to meet on Tuesday night to discuss the race, though there is widespread doubt that the organization will do anything to undermine Moore’s candidacy. 
 
 Within the White House there has been hesitancy to act, in part because Moore has been able to maintain substantial support from state GOP officials. 
 
 While Trump has been quiet, those close to McConnell hope the president will urge Moore to drop out. The president might be nudged off the sidelines by one of his staunchest supporters, conservative radio show host Sean Hannity. On Tuesday night, Hannity, who had previously endorsed Moore, demanded that the candidate explain “inconsistencies” in his denials within 24 hours. 
 
 One key figure, however, is sticking by Moore: former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. People close to Bannon pushed back against a report that the Breitbart chief was considering abandoning the Alabama candidate. 
 
 Some of Moore’s detractors in Alabama are struck by how loyal Moore's supporters have been. 
 
 Alabama radio show host Leland Whaley, who has criticized the candidate on air, said he's gotten an earful from listeners in return. 
 
 “I have been looking over my shoulder because these people are really, really intense right now. It’s a charged environment, a little more than usual right now,” he said. “I have to watch my back in the parking lot, because these people do take it seriously.” 
 
 
 
 CORRECTION: Phillip Jauregui's last name was spelled incorrectly in an earlier version of this article. ||||| The day’s events seemed to harden the resolve of Senate Republicans to avert what they fear would be a nightmare situation going into the midterm elections next year: being associated with a man accused of preying on children. 
 
 “It’s drip by drip, cut by cut,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Alabama’s senior lawmaker. “It doesn’t look good.” 
 
 Mr. Moore responded with fury, not only refusing to quit the race but stating that the person who needed to step aside was Mr. McConnell. 
 
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 “He has failed conservatives and must be replaced,” said Mr. Moore in a statement, appending President Trump’s trademark: “#draintheswamp.” 
 
 
 
 Publicly, Mr. McConnell, appearing at a news conference in Louisville, said he was “looking at” drafting a write-in candidate for the Dec. 12 special election. Privately, Mr. McConnell was doing more than merely looking. One idea being discussed, first brought up by two different White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would be for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to run as either a write-in candidate or to be appointed to what was his seat should Mr. Moore win and be immediately removed from office. 
 
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 Mr. McConnell is supportive of the idea and discussed it on Monday in a telephone call with Vice President Mike Pence that was chiefly about the Republican tax overhaul proposal, according to party officials briefed on the call. Mr. Sessions remains popular among Alabama Republicans, but his relationship with Mr. Trump has frayed since he recused himself from the investigation of the role that Russia played in last year’s presidential campaign. 
 
 The swap would be something of a win-win for Mr. McConnell and Mr. Trump — the senator is eager to rid himself of Mr. Moore and the president has been open about his disappointment with Mr. Sessions. 
 
 That they even discussed such a radical maneuver spoke to the desperate straits that Republicans find themselves in. If Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee, wins, it would narrow the Republican advantage in the Senate to a single seat. 
 
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 But Republicans increasingly believe that enduring such a narrow majority may be a price they are willing to pay if it means keeping Mr. Moore from their ranks. 
 
 Should Mr. Moore prevail, Republicans believe the debate over whether he should be allowed to take and keep his seat could drag on for months. The Republicans’ legislative agenda, including on taxes, already faces uncertain prospects and could be swallowed in a maelstrom of controversy around Mr. Moore and his fitness to serve. 
 
 The implications for the 2018 elections could be even graver, Republicans fear, with several party strategists predicting that Democrats would brand them as the party of child sex abuse. 
 
 For their part, Alabama Republicans are warning of the perils of barring Mr. Moore from the Senate. A write-in campaign, they suggested, would prove fruitless and perhaps help the Democrats, while a move to block or expel Mr. Moore would further poison the relationship between the Republican Party’s leaders and its populist wing. 
 
 “If the people of this state go forward and select their U.S. senator as Roy Moore, it will be because there is a deep suspicion of what has been coined as the establishment in D.C.,” said State Senator Phil Williams, whose district includes Mr. Moore’s home county. “And if the establishment then chooses and tries to unseat, or in some way disavow, that candidate, it will create a backlash the likes of which the party has never seen before.” 
 
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 Democrats, who have been restrained about their prospects in such a conservative state, tried to avoid inserting themselves into the Republican crossfire. But, they said, as more information comes out, Mr. Moore’s case that he is being smeared in a single newspaper article will crumble. By Monday night, an article in The New Yorker asserted that Mr. Moore had been barred from the mall in his hometown, Gadsden, for bothering young women, a memory that many in the town said they shared, though no one has found direct evidence. 
 
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 “The more people that come out of the woodwork, the more women with similar stories, the more credible it becomes,” said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster based in Alabama. “It’s going to become easier to see through Roy Moore’s nondenial denials.” 
 
 Mr. Jones is also quietly benefiting from the support of national liberals. He is to be in Washington on Tuesday for a $500 per person cocktail reception partly sponsored by a raft of well-known Democrats, including Senator Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, according to an invitation circulating among Democratic lobbyists. 
 
 Mr. Jones has been raising substantial money out-of-state — Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut helped him bring in $125,000 with a single email and handful of Twitter messages — and has had Alabama’s airwaves nearly to himself in recent weeks: He has aired nearly $2 million worth of commercials since Mr. Moore won the nomination in September while Mr. Moore has spent only about $300,000 on ads, according to strategists tracking the race. 
 
 Mr. Moore, because of his statewide fame, has never had to raise much money. But now that he is fighting for his political life, he urgently needs to recast the race to focus on some of Mr. Jones’s liberal views on guns and abortion. 
 
 But he may not have the money to mount any such assault and, with his party leaders shunning him, it is not clear who will fill the gap. Mr. Moore tried one approach Monday afternoon: trying to tap into the grass-roots loathing on the right toward Mr. McConnell. 
 
 “Mitch McConnell’s plot to destroy me,” Mr. Moore wrote in the subject line of a fund-raising email. 
 
 “Apparently Mitch McConnell and the establishment G.O.P. would rather elect a radical pro-abortion Democrat than a conservative Christian,” he added.
– As has been widely noted, Mitch McConnell had a truly awful Tuesday. The Senate majority leader had to surrender on ObamaCare repeal, ally Bob Corker announced he was retiring, and, perhaps worst of all, the Senate candidate that McConnell strongly backed in Alabama got trounced by one backed by the Steve Bannon contingent. Just how bad is it for McConnell? Here's a look at coverage: Mocked by Trump: The president has taken to doing physical impressions of a slump-shouldered McConnell, reports Axios. Trump also reportedly called out McConnell as "weak" at a dinner with conservative activists, reports Politico. On the wane: McConnell has gone from "brilliant tactician" to looking vulnerable after the defeats this week, reports the New York Times. If the GOP fails to get tax reform passed this year, his post as majority leader could be in jeopardy—especially with populist insurgents backed by Bannon looking to win more seats. No immediate danger: Both Politico and the Times say McConnell retains rock-solid support in the Republican Conference and thus is not in any immediate peril. Much of that support is based on his formidable fundraising skills on behalf of Senate Republicans. Beware the midterms: In a piece subtitled, "Is the Senate Leader Losing His Grip on the GOP?," Abigail Tracy at Vanity Fair notes that midterm elections in general are often unkind to the party in power: "With the GOP in the midst of an ideological schism, McConnell’s faction could be headed for a reckoning." Indeed, Tuesday's triple whammy "just shows how weak the Republican establishment is right now," writes Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight. Boehner's fate? McConnell is willing to take all the criticism coming from conservatives over the ObamaCare fail, especially if it protects rank-and-file Republicans, per an analysis at the Washington Post. "But one thing that could hamper McConnell’s long-term standing would be if he became a real albatross to his own incumbents in primary elections ahead," writes Paul Kane. Fear of that played a role in John Boehner's resignation as House speaker two years ago. False narrative: Many in the media are portraying the Alabama results as a loss for Trump, but winner Roy Moore is decidedly Trumpian, writes Erick Erickson at the Resurgent. No, this was all about McConnell—in fact, Moore made running against him "the theme of his campaign."