As Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sat to begin his Senate hearings on Tuesday, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Americans’ support for President Donald Trump’s pick are historically low.
The poll, released on Tuesday, found that only 37 percent of Americans support Kavanaugh’s confirmation, while 38 percent believe the Senate should vote to reject him. In the poll’s history, only two nominees have fared worse: Robert Bork and Harriet Miers, who had their confirmations rejected by the Senate in 1987 and 2005 respectively.
Though support for Kavanaugh is low, the Republican-controlled Senate could vote to confirm the current Washington, D.C., district judge to the Supreme Court without any Democratic support. In light of this fact, some outlets have portrayed Kavanaugh’s confirmation as nearly inevitable. However, that attitude has come under criticism as other polls indicate the nominee’s unpopularity and activists mobilize against his confirmation. In particular, Kavanaugh’s stance on abortion has been scrutinized as pro-choice groups sense a threat to abortion access.
The latest numbers cast a pall over Kavanaugh as Democrats in the Senate attacked the Trump administration for refusing to release many documents detailing Kavanaugh’s time as an attorney in the George W. Bush White House. Democrats also cried foul when a Bush lawyer released 42,000 documents on Kavanaugh to the Senate Judicial Committee less than 24 hours before the hearings began.
