Vulnerable Senate Democrats told reporters on Wednesday that they have yet to find a reason to disqualify Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court.
CNN asked several senators who have yet to voice their support or opposition for supporting Kavanaugh whether they have heard anything that would disqualify him for the nation’s highest court over the last two days.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) said, “Not so far,” when asked if she’s heard anything that would disqualify Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said, “No, I haven’t seen anything from that standpoint. He’s handled himself very professionally.”
Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), who narrowly won his December special election and has tepid polling, said, “I’m still going through my process.”
Republican and Democratic senators asked Kavanaugh on Tuesday and Wednesday about his legal opinion opinions on controversial issues such as abortion, Obamacare, torture, and labor rights. After President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, many of these senators listed these issues as some of their primary concerns regarding their potential support for Kavanaugh.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), one of the remaining Republican senators who has yet to voice her support for the Supreme Court nominee, said Tuesday night she was not concerned about Democrats’ complaints about President Donald Trump’s decision to withhold more than 100,000 pages of documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee over claims of executive privilege.
“I don’t really understand their level of outrage when they had already made clear they were going to vote against any nominee that the President put forward,” noting that most Senate Democrats have already come out against Kavanaugh.
Collins did not voice any concern either to CNN. The Maine senator’s primary concern with Kavanaugh’s credentials is his stance on the abortion case Roe v. Wade.
Never-Trump Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who will retire at the end of this year, said that his opposition to President Trump should not disqualify Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t think who nominates him should be disqualifying. … Some people want me to become a liberal because I disagree with President Trump,” Flake suggested. “I disagree with him mostly because I’m a conservative; conservatives believe in the rule of law.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted Wednesday during the nomination hearing that at least four or five vulnerable red-state Senate Democrats will vote to confirm Kavanagh.
“You’re probably going to get 55 votes, 54 to 56, or 57. I don’t know what the number will be,” Sen. Graham said.
“There are eleven undecided senators before the hearing, three of them are Republicans,” Graham continued. “I like our chances, eight of them are Democrat, you can play with five or six of them.”
Red-state Democrats such as Sens. Manchin, Heitkamp, and Jon Tester (D-MT) face increasingly competitive re-election campaigns and could face more pressure to vote to confirm Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
An Axios-SurveyMonkey poll released in July found that three of these senators—Nelson, Donnelly, and Heitkamp—trail their Republican challengers. An August poll found that Montana state auditor Matt Rosendale leads against Sen. Tester.
A survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports released on Tuesday suggested that 69 percent of Americans believe that the Senate will confirm Karnaugh for the Supreme Court.
Breitbart News reported on Tuesday, “Given the broad support of the Kavanaugh nomination, these ten Red State Democrats face the potential of significant local backlash at the polls if they continue to tacitly support the obstructionist tactics of their Democrat colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
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