SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - The Libertarian and Republican challengers in New Mexico’s three-way U.S. Senate race voiced support Friday for the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as the Senate closed in on a final vote.
Kavanaugh’s confirmation is all but guaranteed with a final roll call vote likely to take place Saturday. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich has made clear he’ll vote against Kavanaugh based on the nominee’s judicial views and accusations of teenage sexual misconduct that the first-term senator calls credible.
Former New Mexico governor and third-party Senate candidate Gary Johnson said Friday in an email that he would vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation if he were voting.
Johnson said it was appropriate and good that Christine Blasey Ford was given the opportunity testify before a Senate committee. Kavanaugh has angrily denied Ford’s accusations that he drunkenly sexually assaulting her in 1982 behind locked doors at a high school gathering, along with allegations of sexual misconduct by two other women.
“I commend the Senate for delaying the vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to allow the FBI to take a look at the last-minute issues that were raised,” Johnson said in the statement. “But in the end we are left with the fundamental American notion of innocence until proven guilty, and a nominee whose well-documented record suggests an adherence to the Constitution and protection of our rights.”
Republican candidate Mick Rich, an enthusiastic supporter of President Trump, said he too would be voting for Kavanaugh if he could.
Rich said Kavanaugh is well qualified to sit on the Supreme Court and that the nominee was justified in expressing anger during his denial of the accusations by Ford.
“My heart goes out to what she went through 36 years go,” Rich said of Ford. “Without any substantiation of her story, it made it very difficult to determine what actually happened to her.”
Rich, a construction contractor and newcomer to politics, said he looks forward to “being in the Senate and voting for President Trump’s next nominee to the Supreme Court.”
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