Support for Brett Kavanaugh's Confirmation Cratered in the Past Week, and Republican Women Are Largely to Blame

While voters in the United States get no direct say in who gets appointed to the Supreme Court, their opinions should still matter to their elected officials.

After all, their purpose is to represent the people of their home district. But perhaps more importantly to the politician, the people who elected them do have a direct say in whether they retain their own job.

With midterm elections slated for Tuesday, November 6, 2018, incumbents and their challengers heightened their awareness of poll results. And right now, supporting President Donald Trump's SCOTUS nominee looks less and less popular among voters.

Although voter opposition to Kavanaugh exceeds his support in several major polls, the recent Politico Morning Consult poll noted a gender gap in their results.

Here is a closer look at the results.

Politico Morning Consult poll results (Twitter)

34 percent of voters support a Kavanaugh confirmation, but 37 percent oppose granting Kavanaugh a lifetime appointment on the SCOTUS bench. 29 percent remain undecided.

While support for Kavanaugh remained fairly stable in Politico's polls, opposition grew since the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came to light.

Politico Morning Consult poll results (Politico)

Men continue to favor confirming Kavanaugh, but opposition among women continues to grow. And while women in the GOP still favor confirming Trump's nominee 49 percent versus 15 percent opposed, that marks a drop from the prior week. Opposition to Kavanaugh grew among Republican women as well.

Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president, stated:

"Allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh may have caused GOP women to cool significantly on support for his SCOTUS nomination. In this week’s poll, 49 percent of GOP women say the Senate should confirm Kavanaugh, compared to 15 percent who say they shouldn’t confirm him. Last week, 60 percent said confirm, and 6 percent said don’t confirm."

News of the poll results shared on Twitter by Morning Consult political reporter Eli Yokley drew mixed reactions.

A gender gap became apparent there as well.

Meanwhile, male GOP leaders made several attempts this week to discredit Kavanaugh's accusers and regain support for his confirmation.