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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

Lamar Alexander (R - TN) Definitely Yes

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

Roy Blunt (R - MO) Definitely Yes

John Boozman (R - AR) Definitely Yes

Richard M. Burr (R - NC) Definitely Yes

Shelley Moore Capito (R - WV) Definitely Yes

Bill Cassidy (R - LA) Definitely Yes

Susan Collins (R - ME) Definitely Yes

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

John Cornyn (R - TX) Definitely Yes

Tom Cotton (R - AR) Definitely Yes

Michael D. Crapo (R - ID) Definitely Yes

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

Steve Daines (R - MT) Definitely Yes

Michael B. Enzi (R - WY) Definitely Yes

Joni Ernst (R - IA) Definitely Yes

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

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

Cory Gardner (R - CO) Definitely Yes

Lindsey Graham (R - SC) Definitely Yes

Charles E. Grassley (R - IA) Definitely Yes

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

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

John Hoeven (R - ND) Definitely Yes

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

James M. Inhofe (R - OK) Definitely Yes

Johnny Isakson (R - GA) Definitely Yes

Ron Johnson (R - WI) Definitely Yes

John Kennedy (R - LA) Definitely Yes

Jon Kyl (R - AZ) Definitely Yes

James Lankford (R - OK) Definitely Yes

Mike Lee (R - UT) Definitely Yes

John McCain (R - AZ) Definitely Yes

Mitch McConnell (R - KY) Definitely Yes

Jerry Moran (R - KS) Definitely Yes

Lisa Murkowski (R - AK) Definitely No

Rand Paul (R - KY) Definitely Yes

David Perdue (R - GA) Definitely Yes

Rob Portman (R - OH) Definitely Yes

Jim Risch (R - ID) Definitely Yes

Pat Roberts (R - KS) Definitely Yes

Mike Rounds (R - SD) Definitely Yes

Marco Rubio (R - FL) Definitely Yes

Ben Sasse (R - NE) Definitely Yes

Tim Scott (R - SC) Definitely Yes

Richard C. Shelby (R - AL) Definitely Yes

Dan Sullivan (R - AK) Definitely Yes

John Thune (R - SD) Definitely Yes

Thom Tillis (R - NC) Definitely Yes

Patrick J. Toomey (R - PA) Definitely Yes

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

Todd Young (R - IN) Definitely Yes

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

Michael Bennet (D - CO) Definitely No

Richard Blumenthal (D - CT) Definitely No

Cory Booker (D - NJ) Definitely No

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

Christopher A. Coons (D - DE) Definitely No

Catherine Cortez Masto (D - NV) Definitely No

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

Tammy Duckworth (D - IL) Definitely No

Richard J. Durbin (D - IL) Definitely No

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

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

Kamala Harris (D - CA) Definitely No

Margaret Hassan (D - NH) Definitely No

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

Doug Jones (D - AL) Definitely No

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

Patrick J. Leahy (D - VT) Definitely No

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

Edward J. Markey (D - MA) Definitely No

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

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

Jeff Merkley (D - OR) Definitely No

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

Patty Murray (D - WA) Definitely No

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

Gary Peters (D - MI) Definitely No

Jack Reed (D - RI) Definitely No

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

Brian Schatz (D - HI) Definitely No

Charles E. Schumer (D - NY) Definitely No

Jeanne Shaheen (D - NH) Definitely No

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

Tom Udall (D - NM) Definitely No

Chris Van Hollen (D - MD) Definitely No

Mark Warner (D - VA) Definitely No

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

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

Ron Wyden (D - OR) Definitely No

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.