OPINION:
Even independents hated how Democrats behaved during the nomination process of (now) Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
That’s saying something.
Independents — those who do not claim affiliation with either major political party — have been predicted to be the deciding factor in this year’s midterms.
“Their time has come. Nov. 6 could be independents’ day,” wrote Ron Fournier, president of a Michigan public relations firm, Truscott Rossman, in an August piece for The Washington Post. “More than 40 percent of voters self-identify as independent, according to Gallup. In more than half the states that register and report voters by party, independent voters outnumber one or both of the two major parties.”
Democrats, take a memo.
Take a memo — and read this: A recent CNN/SSRS polling question asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Democrats in the U.S. Senate have handled Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing?” And the numbers, with a sampling error of plus-or-minus 5.9 percent, went this way: 39 percent approved; 58 percent disapproved; 11 percent expressed no opinion. By comparison, 87 percent of Republicans expressed disapproval with how the Democrats handled the Kavanaugh nomination — and 26 percent of self-identifying Democrats did as well.
That’s no small potatoes.
If the confirmation process had taken place months from an election, perhaps the impact from these numbers would prove meaningless. Voters, after all, often have short memories.
But November is right around the corner. And Democrats, meanwhile, are using Kavanaugh as a pitch point to draw out voters to the polls, and donors to their checkbooks.
With that in mind, and the poll numbers as a backdrop: The November elections are looking pretty good for Republicans.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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