Republican candidates running for Senate in red states are rallying around Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and the party leaders pushing for his confirmation on Capitol Hill, picking sides in what has turned into a politically poisonous debate.
Many of the Republican candidates had gone silent in the hours after a woman came forward late last week to say Judge Kavanaugh, as a drunken high school student, attempted to sexually assault her at a house party.
But as accuser Christine Blasey Ford has struggled to corroborate her accusations and rebuffed Republican offers to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee on many different terms, those Republicans have regained their voices, saying their party is giving her a fair chance to come forward and testify.
“If Dr. Ford does not want to, I do think it’s time to move on and to move this process forward,” Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, told radio host Hugh Hewitt.
He said when he talks to people on the campaign trail they see an “ambush” on President Trump’s nominee in the way Democrats have handled Ms. Blasey Ford’s accusation.
Rep. Martha McSally, the Republican candidate for Arizona’s open Senate seat, also told Mr. Hewitt on Wednesday that she has been miffed by Democrats’ tactics.
“This just seems to be a partial memory of something 36 years ago that wasn’t told to anyone at the time,” she said. “I think she’s sincere in her beliefs of what happened to her, and she should be able to tell her story. And that needs to then be weighed against, you know, Judge Kavanaugh’s response and the other weight of the evidence while we move forward to fill this important position with the Supreme Court session starting in early October.”
The list of red-state Democrats on the fence, meanwhile, shrank late Wednesday after Ms. McCaskill came out against Mr. Kavanaugh. She said her decision was based on his record on campaign finance regulations — not the attempted sexual assault accusation.
While none of the Republican candidates has a vote in the proceedings, their approach does signal how the Kavanaugh confirmation battle is playing outside the Beltway, where control of the Senate ultimately will be decided in November.
Mr. Trump will have the chance to test-drive his Kavanaugh message on the campaign trail Friday in Missouri, where he is rallying with Mr. Hawley and is likely to address Ms. McCaskill’s announced stance on his nominee.
Little more than a week ago, Republicans were convinced that Judge Kavanaugh was a winning issue in red states that went big for Mr. Trump in 2016.
North Star Opinion Research conducted an early-August survey that found voters — by a 37 percent margin in North Dakota, 19 percent margin in West Virginia and 14 percent margin in Indiana — said the Senate should confirm Judge Kavanaugh.
Republican Senate nominee Mike Braun issued regular statements demanding that Sen. Joe Donnelly, the Democratic incumbent in Indiana, announce his support for the judge. Likewise for Rep. Kevin Cramer, the Republican challenging Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the Republican candidate challenging Sen. Joe Manchin IIl.
In the days after Ms. Blasey Ford’s accusations of attempted sexual assault went public, Mr. Braun’s Kavanaugh attacks dried up.
But he was back Tuesday, saying he supported the way Republicans were handling the situation and again praised “Judge Kavanaugh’s decades of public service, sterling record on the bench, outstanding personal reputation, and his unequivocal denial of the allegations.”
In Montana, Matt Rosendale had been accusing Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of bowing to liberal donors in his antipathy to the Kavanaugh nomination. Now, Mr. Rosendale says the accusations deserve a “full process” — though he accuses Democrats’ leaking of the information as a dirty trick.
Whit Ayres, the pollster behind the North Star Opinion Research, said candidates would be smart to be careful about what they say because the politics of the Kavanaugh nomination have quickly grown much more complicated.
“It was a different situation before the allegations surfaced,” Mr. Ayres said. “It was perfectly obvious that Judge Kavanaugh was on a course for relatively smooth sailing toward confirmation. This has delayed that decision, but we don’t know yet whether it has changed that decision or changed anyone’s vote.”
But he said what happens now depends largely on Ms. Blasey Ford.
“If the accuser doesn’t show up to testify, then there will be no reason whatsoever to postpone or change anybody’s vote,” he said. “She has got to show up to testify.”
Ms. Heitkamp, Mr. Manchin and Mr. Donnelly have joined their Democratic colleagues in insisting that Ms. Blasey Ford get the chance to speak before a final vote, though they went silent after the professor demanded a list of conditions including an FBI investigation before she would be willing to testify — conditions that the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee rejected Wednesday.
Ms. McCaskill said Wednesday that she couldn’t stomach Mr. Kavanaugh’s record on money in politics and on presidential powers.
“While the recent allegations against him are troubling and deserve a thorough and fair examination by the Senate Judiciary Committee, my decision is not based on those allegations, but rather on his positions on several key issues, most importantly the avalanche of dark, anonymous money that is crushing our democracy,” she said. She said Judge Kavanaugh is “completely out of the mainstream” on the subject.
Mr. Hawley called her decision “no surprise.”
“Claire McCaskill is now 0 for 6 on Supreme Court nominees,” he said. “She has sided with Chuck Schumer every single time — for liberals and against Missouri.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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