What a difference a week makes. Before Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, it looked like a lose-lose situation for Republicans: Abandon Kavanaugh and depress the base ahead of the midterm elections; attack Ford and reap the whirlwind with women come November.
Now it is possible the battle over Kavanaugh could rally apathetic Republican voters, especially in the red states that will decide which party controls the Senate. It has reminded conservatives that whatever their views of President Trump, they are unlikely to be treated fairly by Democrats or a hostile media.
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Make no mistake: The public is divided over who to believe, and in most polls a plurality picks Ford over Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh’s national numbers are lackluster. But Republicans do not need to win a national plebiscite to salvage their narrow Senate majority. They need to beat sitting Democratic senators in states like North Dakota.
There the last two polls that show Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., trailing her Republican challenger, Rep. Kevin Cramer, by double digits. Both Fox News and NBC Valley News have Cramer breaking 50 percent of the vote and Heitkamp stuck in the low 40s, a bad sign for an incumbent. Cramer’s once unimpressive lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average has jumped up to 8.7 points.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., took the lead in a Fox News poll conducted as the fight over Kavanaugh heated up. She has frequently trailed popular former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. She’s now up 0.5 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., didn’t vote for Neil Gorsuch, and her vote was never seriously in play for Kavanaugh. Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, her Republican challenger, seems to be leading by a hair.
It may not be a winning formula everywhere. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has lost his lead over Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in the polling averages. Even Hawley trailed McCaskill by 3 points in a CNN poll as Kavanaugh-Ford dominated the headlines.
Nevertheless, there have been two competing theories as to how the Senate will be won. One was that the blue wave would hit even the Trump states, beginning where it was close in 2016 and the president has since become unpopular (think Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania), and then extending to places like West Virginia where he remains well-liked.
The other theory was that in red states where the fundamentals favor Trump and the Republicans, political reality will eventually reassert itself against the blue gravitational pull. Red-state Democrats have bet otherwise. McCaskill, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., have all come out against Kavanaugh. Donnelly voted for Gorsuch.
Even Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has kept his options open regarding Kavanaugh. Despite representing a state Trump won by 42 points, he has signaled he could vote against Kavanaugh because of Ford or Obamacare. Manchin has a lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average more than twice that of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
[More: Kavanaugh vote hangs over West Virginia’s Manchin]
An NPR/Marist poll found the Democrats’ enthusiasm advantage has nearly vanished during the Kavanaugh contretemps. Their generic ballot edge has been halved. All this in a poll that showed people believing Ford over Kavanaugh by 12 points.
Polls commissioned by the conservative, pro-Kavanaugh Judicial Crisis Network show voters in West Virginia and North Dakota favor his confirmation by about 30 points. In both states, he enjoyed the support of women and independents.
If judicial confirmation politics changed the enthusiasm dynamic from where it was just a couple weeks ago, there is still time for it to change back in favor of the Democrats depending on what the outcome of the Kavanaugh vote is. And since Kavanaugh’s defeat, if that is what ultimately transpires, would come at the hands of centrist Republicans, or gadfly conservatives like Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, it is possible the base would hold it against the GOP.
In 1991, Clarence Thomas was confirmed because Democrats representing largely conservative states thought it was in the best interest politically to vote for him. There are fewer such Democratic senators today. But given the Senate map, maybe there is still just barely enough.
