Roy Moore Loses Alabama Senate Election Against Doug Jones

The contentious and highly publicized race for Alabama's vacant Senate seat is finally over ... and the victor is Doug Jones.

Roy Moore lost the special election for the seat left open by Jeff Sessions Tuesday night, to his Democratic opponent Jones, by a slim margin ... amidst the mounting allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s.

Moore and his campaign chairman appeared on stage shortly after Jones' acceptance speech to announce they'd continue to watch votes come in, hoping the margin of victory is less than .5% for Jones to trigger an automatic recount ... but that seems very unlikely.

As we reported ... Moore rode in horseback to cast his ballot Tuesday -- and the showmanship apparently didn't pay off. It's unclear if his spokesman's TV appearances had any effect.

President Trump weighed in on Moore's loss by seemingly taking the high road.