Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

On Washington

‘Kavanaugh’s Revenge’ Fell Short Against Democrats in the Midterms

The fight over Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination resulted in a split decision in the midterm elections that suggests that Democrats might have gained ground in their fledgling efforts to make the court a mobilizing issue.Credit...Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Republicans saw the poisonous fight over Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation as pure gold in the midterm elections, calling it “Kavanaugh’s Revenge.” Senator Bob Casey saw it a little differently in his own re-election bid — as a less-than-decisive issue in what was supposed to be a marquee race.

“I think because health care was such an overriding factor, it was down the list,” said Mr. Casey, the Pennsylvania Democrat, who won easily despite his strong opposition to Judge Kavanaugh in a state won by President Trump two years earlier. Mr. Casey’s performance in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs — an improvement from previous elections — suggests that the Kavanaugh fight could have instead benefited him by turning out supportive voters.

In the end, the most contentious Supreme Court confirmation drama in decades resulted in a split midterm decision that suggests that Democrats might have gained ground in their fledgling efforts to make the court as mobilizing an issue to their voters as it has long been to Republicans.

The conservative backlash to the fight seemed to help Republicans capture three Democratic Senate seats in conservative Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota — but Republicans might have grabbed the seats regardless of the uproar over Judge Kavanaugh. The backlash could have influenced the narrow Democratic Senate loss in Florida as well. And the sole Democratic senator who supported Judge Kavanaugh, Joe Manchin III in West Virginia, won in one of Mr. Trump’s strongest states.

Yet Democrats in five other states carried by Mr. Trump two years ago won re-election after voting against Judge Kavanaugh: Mr. Casey in Pennsylvania, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Debbie Stabenow in Michigan, Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Jon Tester in Montana. Mr. Tester survived despite an onslaught by Mr. Trump, who visited Montana four times in a personal crusade to oust him.

“Your senator, Tester, what he did was terrible,” Mr. Trump told a crowd in Montana on his last visit on the eve of the election. “What he did to now-Justice Kavanaugh — Judge Kavanaugh at that time — was terrible.”

In the race for an open seat in Arizona, a state Mr. Trump won in 2016, Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic House member who announced her opposition to Judge Kavanaugh, defeated Martha McSally, a Republican House member who backed the nomination.

Senator Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican who backed Judge Kavanaugh, lost his re-election bid. His race was the only one in which a Republican sought re-election in a state carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. For Phil Bredesen, a Democratic former governor in Tennessee, his support of Judge Kavanaugh — which drew criticism from his own party — was not enough to lift him to victory in his bid for an open Senate seat.

Democrats saw the Kavanaugh fight as a significant boost in their successful drive to regain the House majority, believing it energized female voters in the suburbs.

“Kavanaugh’s nomination hurt the Republicans significantly in the election, harming them greatly in the House and doing very little damage in the Senate,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat.

Image
Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, voted against Judge Kavanaugh and easily won re-election.Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York Times

Republicans scoff at such claims, saying that what conservatives saw as unfounded accusations of sexual assault and a fierce campaign to block a highly qualified nominee fired up their base in a year when enthusiasm in the party had been lagging.

Senator-elect Mike Braun, Republican of Indiana, said that while he believed he was already ahead in the final weeks of the campaign, the hostile tone of the Kavanaugh confirmation battle “took the whole energy level up.” He ended up handily defeating Senator Joe Donnelly, the incumbent Democrat, in a race that did not turn out to be as close as polls had indicated.

“That was so appalling to most Hoosiers, independents and even conservative Democrats,” Mr. Braun said of the Kavanaugh fight. “It boosted all races across the country and especially here, measurably so.”

After the election, Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who had angrily challenged Democrats during the hearings, said that “virtually all Senate Democrats running in Trump states who voted against Brett Kavanaugh” were turned out by constituents who “held them responsible for being part of a despicable smear campaign orchestrated by the left.”

Republicans, though, have narrowed the field of Trump states mainly to the most conservative, glossing over the fact that Democrats prevailed in other states carried by Mr. Trump. At the beginning of the election cycle, Senate Democrats in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and especially Montana were considered highly endangered and were squarely in the sights of Republicans.

“That they have to claim victories they won in Missouri, Indiana and North Dakota shows how weak they really are,” Mr. Schumer said.

In Pennsylvania, Mr. Casey’s opponent, Lou Barletta, sought to make the Kavanaugh nomination a wedge issue, running an ad accusing Mr. Casey of “dereliction of duty” for not meeting with the nominee. They also sparred over the nomination in debates. But any detrimental impact for Mr. Casey seemed to be offset by what he described as a surge of anti-Trump voters in urban and suburban areas.

Nationally, exit polls showed that more voters opposed Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination than supported it, and that women were far more likely than men to be against his confirmation.

With 2018 behind them, Democrats plan to build on that anti-Kavanaugh sentiment and leverage it against Republicans who are expected to be at the center of the battle for Senate control in 2020. Activists believe they set the stage for voters to remember the fight two years from now. Among the Republican incumbents they intend to focus on are Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine, whose support was seen as crucial to Judge Kavanaugh’s approval.

“If nothing else, the public is going to be freshly reminded of the outrage of him being confirmed with the next round of decisions from this court,” said Brian Fallon, the head of Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy group. “For those Senate Republicans, part of our work is to make sure the likes of Cory Gardner and Collins and Tillis are sure not to live it down. They own it. This is going to be part of our accountability in 2020 races.”

Mr. Trump and the Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, got the man they wanted on the Supreme Court for years to come. The political repercussions of that high court push will be playing out for years to come as well.

Michael Tackett contributed reporting.

Get politics and Washington news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the Morning Briefing newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Democrats See Benefits From Fight Against Kavanaugh. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT