Opposition to Kavanaugh shoots up 8 points in just over a month

As Judge Brett Kavanaugh faces allegations of assault and attempted rape, a new poll shows opposition to his Supreme Court nomination has skyrocketed over the past month.

Since Trump announced his pick, Kavanaugh has become one of the most unpopular Supreme Court nominees in the history of polling. But a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that opposition to the already-unpopular Kavanaugh has increased by 8.4 percentage points in just over a month.

On Aug. 15, Kavanaugh’s nomination was opposed by 27.3 percent of respondents. But 35.7 percent of respondents opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination.in the most recent poll, taken from Sept. 11-17. Support for Kavanaugh fell 2.2 percent over the same period, to an abysmal 31 percent.

Kavanaugh enjoys even lower support among women, just 23.3 percent. And his support is extremely low among black women (7.8 percent) and single women (11.6 percent).

The rise in opposition to Kavanaugh accelerated during his disastrous confirmation hearings, which further exposed his hostility to women’s reproductive freedom, his ignorance about birth control, and his unwillingness to recuse himself from cases involving the Trump/Russia investigation.

Now Kavanaugh faces serious allegations of a violent attempted rape — along with the prospect of a public Senate hearing and a demand for an FBI investigation into the matter.

Only part of the Reuters poll was taken after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward to describe the harrowing assault she says Kavanaugh committed.

Opposition to Kavanaugh did tick up sharply in the Reuters poll in the one day following the publication of Ford’s account of the assault, in which she said she “thought [Kavanaugh] might inadvertently kill me” as he held her down and muffled her screams by covering her mouth.

On the other hand, a trio of YouGov polls over the past week and a half found that the allegations have had little impact so far on Kavanaugh’s already-low popularity.

But it’s early yet, and there is still room for public opinion to turn even harder against Kavanaugh. At least a third of Americans still haven’t made up their minds about him — and they will be listening carefully to what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has to say.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.