The Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination: Trump ups the ante by mocking the woman who says she was sexually assaulted
In the betting PaddyPower make it 3/10 that Brett Kavanaugh will be confirmed as Justice of the Supreme Court in 2018 and 21/10 that he won’t.
The wider political dimension is how this is going to influence voters in the midterm elections next month when the Democratic party has a realistic chance of taking the House and an outside one of taking the Senate as well.
Until a few hours ago Trump had been fairly guarded in how he referred to the woman who has made the accusations of sexual assault 35 years ago against the man who next week could be on the Supreme Court. Her statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Kavanaugh’ response last Thursday have been totally dominating US politics during this critical election period.
Given Trump’s personal history this is a territory where you would have thought he would have been extremely careful.
The nomination process was paused for a week last Friday to allow the FBI time to examine the allegations.
My reading is that if Kavanaugh is not confirmed that will fire up Republicans in the elections while it will be the Democrats who’ll be fired up if it goes the other way.