FILE PHOTO: Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh testifies in front of the Senate Judiciary committee regarding sexual assault allegations at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, U.S., September 27, 2018. Gabriella Demczuk/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
By Lawrence Hurley and Chris Kahn
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Opposition among Americans to Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, has increased in the wake of his testimony last week before a U.S. Senate committee in which he defiantly denied sexual misconduct allegations, Reuters/Ipsos polling data showed on Wednesday.
In the latest seven-day average in a survey of U.S. adults, 41 percent of respondents opposed Kavanaugh, 33 percent supported the conservative federal appeals court judge and 26 percent said they did not know.
Opposition to Kavanaugh grew 4 percentage points after the Sept. 27 Judiciary Committee hearing in which university professor Christine Blasey Ford detailed a sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh and he denied it, portraying himself as the victim of a “political hit.”
Opposition grew every day after the hearing in the poll, conducted between Sept. 25 and Oct. 1.
The increase in opposition to Kavanaugh, facing a confirmation vote in the Senate after being nominated by Trump for a lifetime position on the court, appears to be driven by those who previously did not have an opinion. The percentage of respondents with no opinion on Kavanaugh decreased by about 7 percentage points compared to a week before the hearing.
Support for Kavanaugh has remained relatively stable, the polling showed, rising slightly after the hearing.
Opposition rose among Democrats by 6 percentage points to 71 percent and was relatively unchanged among people unaffiliated with a political party compared to before the hearing, according to the poll. Support among Republicans stood at 70 percent, rising 4 percentage points in the days after the hearing, but was lower among Republican women, at 64 percent.
Among independents and people unaffiliated with a political party, 31 percent opposed Kavanaugh, 20 percent supported him and 49 percent said they did not know.
The fight over Kavanaugh’s nomination comes against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement fighting sexual harassment and assault that has toppled a succession of powerful men.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English. It gathered responses from 4,057 U.S. adults, including 1,347 Republicans and 1,653 Democrats. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 2 percentage points
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Chris Kahn; Editing by Will Dunham)
Jimmy Carter was not only the longest living ex-president in history, but he lived so…
Former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama honored Jimmy Carter in the most…
Trump got House Republicans to not use reconciliation to cut Social Security. The problem is…
President-elect Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson have agreed to a deal that would fund the…
Donald Trump demanded that the debt limit be raised as part of the government funding…
Donald Trump and JD Vance are blaming President Biden for the havoc caused by Elon…
This website uses cookies.