Courts

The Historically Unpopular Brett Kavanaugh

That's gotta sting.

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If you thought getting nominated to be on the Supreme Court would be a real shot in the arm for your self confidence, you didn’t account for the blow that polling would reveal. According to a new CNN poll, Brett Kavanaugh is the least popular Supreme Court nominee in 30 years. Harriet Miers’s abortive nomination in 2005 was more popular than Kavanaugh’s. That’s gotta sting.

Now let’s get right into the data that puts it all in historical perspective:

Overall, 37% of Americans say they’d like to see the Senate vote in favor of his confirmation. Kavanaugh’s support is the lowest in polling dating back to Robert Bork’s nomination by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. That’s lower support for Kavanaugh than similar public assessments of the unsuccessful nominations of Merrick Garland and Harriet Miers, as well as all successful nominees save David Souter, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, for whom equivalent data are not available. Slightly more, 40%, say the Senate should not vote to confirm Kavanaugh, while 22% have no opinion on the matter. And Americans’ first impressions of the judge are mixed: 33% have a generally positive take, 27% neutral and 29% generally negative.

Diving deeper into the internals, it seems Kavanaugh’s brand of originalism just doesn’t play well with women. Women — be they Democrats, independents, or Republicans — are more likely to think that Kavanaugh’s nomination should be opposed than their male counterparts and more likely to think Kavanaugh’s views are outside the mainstream:

Women, in particular, are notably opposed to Kavanaugh’s nomination, and it’s not just partisanship driving the difference. Just 28% of women say the Senate should vote in favor of confirming Kavanaugh, compared with 47% of men. That gender gap extends to Democrats (6% of Democratic women support confirmation vs. 22% of Democratic men), and independents (28% of women vs. 47% of men). There’s a far smaller gap between GOP women (71%) and men (77%).

Women are also less likely than men to say Kavanaugh’s views are mainstream. Just 35% of women consider them to be mainstream vs. 50% of men. Here, there is a meaningful gender gap between Republican women (60% mainstream) and GOP men (77%), as well as between independent women (39% mainstream) and independent men (53%), while the gender gap among Democrats is negligible (23% of Democratic men and 19% of Democratic women consider his views mainstream). Overall, 42% of Americans say Kavanaugh’s views are in the mainstream and 35% say they are too extreme.

So is this unpopularity going to be a problem for the GOP as they head into a contentious midterm election?

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Oh right, political gerrymandering is a thing… that the soon-to-be Justice Kavanaugh is likely going to codify into constitutional jurisprudence. Sigh… it’s going to be a long 40 or so years with Kavanaugh on the Court.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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