Kavanaugh votes could hurt or help these midwestern Senators in tight races



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There is evidence that in the highly critical states critical of the Democrats' hopes in the Senate in the Midwest, support for Kavanaugh could hurt many practicing Democrats. Others, less in danger, might see a bump of their opposition to him. The region has become a key battleground in 2018, as Democrats try to regain their momentum where Trump beat them in 2016.

Trump's approval rate is 42% in the Midwestern states, according to a recent CNN survey conducted by SSRS, roughly identical to that of the country, where it is 41%. Although the Midwest as a whole did not support Kavanaugh's candidacy to the Supreme Court (40% voted for, 52% did not vote), many Democratic senators are fighting to be reelected in the deepest red states in the region.

The Senegalese senator from Missouri, Democrat Claire McCaskill, is one of those candidates for re-election. She stated that the allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh were "disturbing" but were not the reason she had voted against her confirmation.

In a Fox News poll released prior to Kavanaugh's confirmation, 42 percent of likely voters in the US Senate elections in Missouri said McCavanill's vote on Kavanaugh would not change their votes in the Senate. A quarter of respondents said it would make them more likely to vote for McCaskill if she opposed Kavanaugh and a little more, 29%, said it would make them less likely.

Most people said that they had already decided to vote – 75 percent of likely McCaskill voters said they would be certain to support it in November. McCaskill was tied with Republican Josh Hawley at 43 percent in the poll.

Another Fox poll from the same US Midwest investigative group examined the impact of the Kavanaugh vote on the US Senate race in Indiana, where Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly hopes to survive a CNN Toss Up race. For Donnelly, it's really divided. One-third of likely voters said that he was voting against Kavanaugh's confirmation, that would not change the way they would vote in the Senate race, 32% said it would make them less likely to vote for him and 30% more likely. Donnelly refused to support the judge and voted with his party.
In a NBC / Marist poll in Wisconsin, which is a safer democratic territory than CNN calls likely democratic, a majority (41%) of registered voters said before Kavanaugh's confirmation that they were more likely to support a candidate to the Congress opposed to his candidacy. In the same poll, Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin had a 14-point lead in the Senate race among potential voters.
Finally, in North Dakota, Senator Heidi Heitkamp is in dangerous territory. She is a democrat on a seat that CNN calls Republican lean and she is down in the polls. There is evidence that his controversial vote against Kavanaugh could have further harmed him. Fox polls showed that 17 percent of potential voters said their opposition to Kavanaugh would encourage them to support it, but twice as much, or 34 percent, would make them less likely to support it. Nearly half, 46%, said his vote against Kavanaugh would not affect their decision.

Of those who plan to vote for re-election, 52% said voting for or against Kavanaugh's candidacy would not change anything. Among those considering voting for Republican Representative Kevin Cramer, 54 percent said his vote against Brett Kavanaugh would make them less likely to vote for her in November.

Trump's approval rate among likely voters in North Dakota in the Fox poll is 64%, which is significantly higher than the rest of the country and the Midwest as a whole.

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