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Republicans have a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate. They need 50 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, altering the court’s ideological balance for perhaps a generation. Everything is on the line. As such, Democrats have a tough task at hand: flip at least two Republicans while, simultaneously, holding all Democrats—including several representing tough red states while facing re-election this November.
As of now, there’s strong indication that Democrats will hold their people, even West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, if enough Republicans defect to sink the nomination. (Less need to take a politically dangerous vote for a losing cause.) Heck, if Democrats can find enough Republican votes to sink the nomination, there might not even be a vote! The desire to put red-state Democrats in a tough spot would likely be outweighed by the political nightmare of denying Trump’s rabid base the Supreme Court justice they feel entitled to having. If the GOP base is already depressed, imagine how much worse it could be if Senate Republicans, yet again, were unable to use their majority to enact a key piece of Trump’s agenda?
Today, we saw Senate Democrats take a series of high-profile steps, seemingly random, but in reality targeted at three winnable Republicans. Jumping off the strategic leaks by Sen. Cory Booker (backed by the entire Democratic caucus), information newly revealed puts THREE Republicans in a bind … or gives them an excuse to vote “no” on Kavanaugh.
- Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono fiercely attacked Kavanaugh for his views on indigenous rights—an area in which Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has a particular interest. Hirono may have been speaking for herself, but she was also, strategically, giving Murkowski a reason to oppose Kavanaugh on local-issues grounds, avoiding hot-button abortion or Obamacare rationales that might give her trouble in Red Alaska.
- Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins has been walking around pretending that Kavanaugh wouldn’t threaten abortion rights, citing his use of “settled precedent” language to pretend that he won’t gut abortion the first chance he gets. This is important, given that Collins is supposedly a big abortion-rights champion in this Blue state. Yet information in the leaked emails directly contradicts Kavanaugh’s public proclamations: "I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so." Collins is now in a serious bind.
- And in a surprise, yet brilliant expansion of the playing field, Booker justified leaking the emails by pointing to memos dealing with Kavanaugh’s views on affirmative action. Why is this important? Because appointed South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, the party’s lone African American in the Senate, has already scuttled a Trump judicial nominee on those very same grounds.
Democrats are sitting on a treasure trove of Kavanaugh-related info, and yet they’ve come out of the gate today on the three issues that could net them three winnable Republican votes. Heck, by giving Scott a reason to vote “no,” they can even lose Collins and still come out ahead. (And we get to see Collins destroy any future chance of re-election as a bonus.)
None of this is a coincidence. This is all evidence that Senate Democrats are working with a real plan to win this battle, and we’re still early in the process. This isn’t a matter of presidential grandstanding and self-aggrandizement. They’re playing to win.