Voters Are A Lot More Confident In Kavanaugh Confirmation

Confidence that Judge Brett Kavanaugh will be the next U.S. Supreme Court justice has jumped following last week’s tempestuous Senate confirmation hearings.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 84% of Likely U.S. Voters now think Kavanaugh is likely to be confirmed by the Senate, with 55% who say it is Very Likely. This compares to 69% and 38% respectively just before the hearings began. Just nine percent (9%) believe his confirmation to the high court is Not Very or Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

In early July when President Trump nominated Kavanaugh to take the place of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, 83% said he was likely to be confirmed, including 47% who said it was Very Likely.

At that time, 44% felt Kavanaugh should be confirmed; 38% did not. That hasn’t changed much, with 46% now saying the Senate should confirm him, while 39% disagree. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of voters say they have been following recent news reports about Kavanaugh, with 53% who have been following Very Closely. Among voters who have been following Very Closely, 90% think Kavanaugh’s confirmation is likely, including 68% who say it’s Very Likely.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on September 9 -10, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Democrats are trying to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination, hoping that if they win control of the Senate in November they can force Trump to pick a more liberal candidate for the Supreme Court. Voters recognize that the opposition to Kavanaugh is about politics, not issues.

Only 24% of Democrats think the Senate should confirm Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice. This compares to 68% of Republicans and a plurality (48%) of voters not affiliated with either major political party.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of GOP voters and 58% of unaffiliateds see Kavanaugh’s confirmation as Very Likely. Among Democrats, 78% say he is likely to be confirmed, but just 42% consider it Very Likely.

Men like Kavanaugh for the job more than women do and are more confident that he is likely to be confirmed. 

Older voters are far more likely than those under 40 to be following news about Kavanaugh Very Closely. The older the voter, the more likely they are to think he will be confirmed by the Senate.

Just over half (51%) of all voters said earlier this summer that the U.S. Senate should move as quickly as possible to confirm a replacement for Kennedy, and 87% rate the selection of a new Supreme Court justice as important to their vote in November.

Even before Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination, most voters said it isn’t possible for him to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court that both political parties will approve of.

At the close of its latest session in June, the Supreme Court which handed down some major wins for conservatives and the Trump administration this year now earns its highest approval rating in several years.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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