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Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed as the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on October 6, 2018. The vote was:

50-48

What was this?

SCOTUS Watch tracked the public statements made by United States senators about how they planned to vote on the Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, and tallied them into a likely vote count. This tally was based solely on their statements: we did not make estimates or guesses based on a senator's party affiliation or ideology.

Note that this only included statements made by senators after the identity of the nominee was announced. (So, for example, Senator Doug Jones' statement to CNN on Sunday, July 8th did not count, as Brett Kavanaugh had not yet been announced.)

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507 statements to date (HTML | JSON)

(Statements last updated October 6, 2018 04:02 PM -04:00.)
Nominee needs at least 50 votes*
Definitely Yes - 51👍
51Definitely No - 49👎
49
* Although his statements are included on this site, Senator John McCain died on August 25, 2018 and thus he is excluded from the voting intention tallies. His successor, former Arizona senator Jon Kyl, was sworn in on Wednesday, September 5th, 2018. Given his role as Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation 'sherpa', Jon Kyl is considered a likely or definite yes vote for confirmation. Therefore, Brett Kavanaugh will need either a minimum of 50 senators to vote yea, with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tiebreaking vote, or a clean 51-vote majority.
Senators Definitely Yes👍 Likely Yes🤷‍♂️👍 Unknown🤷‍♂️ Likely No🤷‍♂️👎 Definitely No👎 Total
Males 46 0 0 0 31 77
Females 5 0 0 0 18 23
Democrats 1 0 0 0 48 49
Republicans 50 0 0 0 1 51
Next Election in 2018 10 0 0 0 25 35
Next Election in 2020 21 0 0 0 11 32
Next Election in 2022 20 0 0 0 13 33
Sort by: Caucus | Gender | Age | Intent | Next Election | DW-NOMINATE Score | Most Recent Statement | Most Statements

Tammy Baldwin (D - WI) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Sherrod Brown (D - OH) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Maria Cantwell (D - WA) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Benjamin L. Cardin (D - MD) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Thomas R. Carper (D - DE) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Bob Casey (D - PA) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Joe Donnelly (D - IN) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Dianne Feinstein (D - CA) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D - NY) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Martin Heinrich (D - NM) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Heidi Heitkamp (D - ND) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Mazie K. Hirono (D - HI) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Tim Kaine (D - VA) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Angus King (I - ME) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Amy Klobuchar (D - MN) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Joe Manchin III (D - WV) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Claire McCaskill (D - MO) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Robert Menendez (D - NJ) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Christopher S. Murphy (D - CT) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Bill Nelson (D - FL) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Bernard Sanders (I - VT) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Tina Smith (D - MN) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Debbie Stabenow (D - MI) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Jon Tester (D - MT) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Elizabeth Warren (D - MA) Definitely No 2018 election seat

Sheldon Whitehouse (D - RI) Definitely No 2018 election seat

John Barrasso (R - WY) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Bob Corker (R - TN) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Ted Cruz (R - TX) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Deb Fischer (R - NE) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Jeff Flake (R - AZ) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Orrin G. Hatch (R - UT) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Dean Heller (R - NV) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Cindy Hyde-Smith (R - MS) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Roger Wicker (R - MS) Definitely Yes 2018 election seat

Cory Booker (D - NJ) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Christopher A. Coons (D - DE) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Richard J. Durbin (D - IL) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Doug Jones (D - AL) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Edward J. Markey (D - MA) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Jeff Merkley (D - OR) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Gary Peters (D - MI) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Jack Reed (D - RI) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Jeanne Shaheen (D - NH) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Tom Udall (D - NM) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Mark Warner (D - VA) Definitely No 2020 election seat

Lamar Alexander (R - TN) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Shelley Moore Capito (R - WV) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Bill Cassidy (R - LA) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Susan Collins (R - ME) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

John Cornyn (R - TX) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Tom Cotton (R - AR) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Steve Daines (R - MT) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Michael B. Enzi (R - WY) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Joni Ernst (R - IA) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Cory Gardner (R - CO) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Lindsey Graham (R - SC) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

James M. Inhofe (R - OK) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Jon Kyl (R - AZ) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Mitch McConnell (R - KY) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

David Perdue (R - GA) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Jim Risch (R - ID) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Pat Roberts (R - KS) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Mike Rounds (R - SD) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Ben Sasse (R - NE) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Dan Sullivan (R - AK) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Thom Tillis (R - NC) Definitely Yes 2020 election seat

Michael Bennet (D - CO) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Richard Blumenthal (D - CT) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Catherine Cortez Masto (D - NV) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Tammy Duckworth (D - IL) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Kamala Harris (D - CA) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Margaret Hassan (D - NH) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Patrick J. Leahy (D - VT) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Patty Murray (D - WA) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Brian Schatz (D - HI) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Charles E. Schumer (D - NY) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Chris Van Hollen (D - MD) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Ron Wyden (D - OR) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Roy Blunt (R - MO) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

John Boozman (R - AR) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Richard M. Burr (R - NC) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Michael D. Crapo (R - ID) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Charles E. Grassley (R - IA) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

John Hoeven (R - ND) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Johnny Isakson (R - GA) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Ron Johnson (R - WI) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

John Kennedy (R - LA) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

James Lankford (R - OK) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Mike Lee (R - UT) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

John McCain (R - AZ) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Jerry Moran (R - KS) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Lisa Murkowski (R - AK) Definitely No 2022 election seat

Rand Paul (R - KY) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Rob Portman (R - OH) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Marco Rubio (R - FL) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Tim Scott (R - SC) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Richard C. Shelby (R - AL) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

John Thune (R - SD) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Patrick J. Toomey (R - PA) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Todd Young (R - IN) Definitely Yes 2022 election seat

Acknowledgments

SCOTUS Watch is especially indebted to two organizations.

ProPublica maintains a Congress API, allowing users to quickly access a wide array of information on American elected officials, including their dates of birth, party affiliation, seniority, next election year, contact information, social media handles, and much else besides. SCOTUS Watch uses this API extensively to provide additional context on senators who have made statements on the Supreme Court nominee.

VoteView.com tracks votes taken by U.S. senators and representatives and calculates their DW-NOMINATE scores, which represent an evaluation of an elected official's estimated ideological leaning. SCOTUS Watch uses these scores as one of its filtering criteria to allow users to sort the list of U.S. senators by their measured ideology.

For more information on DW-NOMINATE scores, visit the VoteView web site and the NOMINATE Wikipedia page.