WASHINGTON — Republicans have no choice but to give Roy Moore the benefit of the doubt that he won’t sexually assault a 10-year-old girl when he was 32, several senior Senate GOP officials and operatives told BuzzFeed News, amid speculation that the party will finally back away from endorsing the Alabama Senate candidate. On Monday, a woman told CNN that Moore had repeatedly tried to have sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was 32, but that she managed to get away from him. The woman, Leigh Corfman, is now 52 and said she would have been only 14 during the period of the alleged abuse. But two others, including a woman who said Moore molested her when she was a child in Alabama, also told the news outlet they had seen their stories come up on a Facebook group for Moore’s supporters and doubted that Moore had done anything wrong. Though a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that any story about the candidate’s “character and integrity is totally false and a desperate political attack,” senior Republicans on Tuesday continued to stress that their party would need evidence of wrongdoing beyond a woman’s allegations for them to abandon Moore. Roy Moore talks with reporter Sean Sullivan during an interview in New York on Oct. 21. Kevin Hagen / Getty Images “We know they’re going to be a tough week to convince people that Roy Moore should be in the Senate. But we haven’t seen any hard evidence yet of a crime,” one former senior Senate GOP aide said, referring to allegations from Corfman and others. “Even if you’re convinced that the women are lying, what’s the crime? Do you want to make something up for the sake of the party?” Moore, a former judge who has led in recent polls on the Republican primary ahead of the December special election, denies the allegations against him. For several days, Republican lawmakers and aides have been saying that they are still undecided on Moore, a decision largely made more complicated by the fact that the vast majority of them aren’t in the state, making any trip to the reliably red state of Alabama an awkward and time-consuming affair. “There’s no evidence that I can see. It just seems like a politically motivated attack,” one Republican consultant told BuzzFeed News, citing a number of inconsistencies in how Corfman’s allegations have been described in reports. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen. She claims it did. If it did, he was 32, if it’s true, that would be awful and inexcusable.” If Republicans rally around Moore, he will almost certainly win the special election against the Democrat — a liberal Democrat who has not yet qualified for her party's primary. “I’m willing to hear Roy Moore out and see what he has to say. He should step aside if these allegations are true. But what if they’re not?” the consultant added. Some Republicans are still holding out hope that there’s more to the allegations against Moore than the accounts of women who say he attempted to molest them as young teenagers. “For anybody in the #MAGA crowd, you can’t look at this without asking what the goal is here. What are the political motivations of the accuser and her attorney?” a prominent national Republican told BuzzFeed News, asking for anonymity to speak frankly about the race. “The guy has a sterling 40-year history of law enforcement and public service, and people keep trying to push dirt onto him?” "If he is guilty of the allegations, so be it. I’m not going to put my head in the sand and pretend it didn’t happen,” said another top Republican strategist who is monitoring the race closely. “But it’s been pretty thoroughly investigated, including by the state of Alabama." The Moore campaign, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BuzzFeed News, has insisted that they are not backing down and is pushing back on attempts to disqualify Moore over the allegations, sending out fundraising appeals and a statement by the candidate on Tuesday afternoon. “They are trying to destroy his character. It is disgraceful. It is reprehensible. There is no reason they should go after Roy Moore.” Republican leaders are watching this campaign with some degree of caution after their failure to come to a consensus on the candidacy of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. As they watch Trump and Moore, they’re hoping they don’t repeat that mistake. “We need some sort of external investigation,” one Republican strategist said, echoing what the party’s leaders have been saying publicly. The GOP has already lost one seat in the Senate this year, following the death of Sen. John McCain, but it appears reluctant to take the chance of losing another if Moore wins. “They’re making an example of him,” said a Republican strategist. “If he wins, that’s all he needs.” A Democratic strategist on Tuesday called Republicans “losing more seats than they can afford to lose” and accused them of being the “party of Trump,” saying Democrats need a clean sweep to win control of Congress. “If you want to run for office, especially statewide, there are questions. They had better be answered and that’s the best way to respond,” he said. “In order for a Republican to win in Alabama, it can’t be a race about women.” The Moore campaign declined to comment on this story. Democrats have not yet made a coordinated effort to tie Moore to Trump, though the Alabama Republican Party issued a press release on Monday denouncing the president for his defense of Moore. “President Trump’s support of Roy Moore is disgusting and demeaning to all women,” the party wrote. “If Roy Moore wins on December 12th, it is proof that the moral fabric of this nation is broken. We cannot sit idly by and let evil triumph over good.” The Moore campaign, which has accused the White House of meddling in Alabama politics and distracting from a number of national issues in order to help elect Moore, has said that Trump’s support of the candidate is unrelated to his policies or the White House’s legislative priorities. "I believe he supports the president regardless of what issues he stands on,” said Ian Rees, a spokesman for the Moore campaign, on Monday. It’s not clear whether that defense is enough to win the argument in the state, where a Democrat running for Attorney General, Doug Jones, said on Tuesday that he thinks the president needs to "take a serious look at what is going on” with the Republican Party. Moore has also faced criticism from Alabama’s most famous resident. At an event for Trump in November 2015, Jones, Alabama’s former attorney general and, at the time, its top law enforcement official, told a group of protesters that his name had been pulled out of a hat to fill a vacant Senate seat. “They haven’t been telling the truth all this time about what’s going on. Doug Jones told me that when he was running for attorney general,” Trump told the group of about 200 who were protesting his appearance. “But anyway, thank you very much. And we’ll get your vote, okay? We gotta get your vote, okay?” Democrats are hoping the controversy over Moore’s accusers takes center stage. “It’s time to talk about who Roy Moore is. It’s time to talk about the impact of his election,” said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Asked whether his campaign could focus more on Moore, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, “No.” Democratic Party operatives have been keeping an eye on the race, including a former senior aide to Vice President Joe Biden who lives in Birmingham. “I’m not trying to make the best out of Alabama. What’s true is what’s true. People have to vote based on facts,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), who said that he had donated $20 to Jones and was following the race “every day.” One top Democrat echoed that sentiment: “At this point, it’s important to show the country that the Democratic party cares about it.” This article has been updated to include comments from Roy Moore and Nancy Pelosi.