GOP pollster: Kavanaugh popular in Senate battlegrounds

Voters in three conservative states where Senate Democrats are up for reelection want their senators to support Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, according to a new poll obtained by POLITICO.

GOP pollster North Star Opinion Research found that people in Indiana, West Virginia and North Dakota want their senators to confirm the high court nominee. Democratic Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota are all up for reelection this fall.

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The poll, taken in mid-August and commissioned by the Judicial Crisis Network, a group working to confirm Kavanaugh, found that 60 percent of registered voters in North Dakota want Kavanaugh confirmed, compared to 23 percent who do not. In Indiana, 46 percent of voters want the nominee approved compared to 32 percent against. And 51 percent of West Virginians want Kavanaugh confirmed compared to 32 percent in opposition. Independents in each state favored Kavanaugh by similar margins.

The results largely track with a July poll from North Star, showing a month of partisan battles has barely affected Kavanaugh’s image in Senate battlegrounds.

The poll surveyed 500 registered voters in each state. The margin of error is 4.38 percent.

Heitkamp, Donnelly and Manchin all voted for Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch, and are being targeted by Republicans to do the same for Kavanaugh. Each is under attack from their Republican opponent for not announcing support for Kavanaugh, though the nominee still hasn’t had his Judiciary Committee hearing yet.

Nationally, Kavanaugh is less popular than he is in these GOP-leaning states: A Quinnipiac Poll this month found 44 percent of those surveyed support confirmation, compared to 39 percent who are against. That is a slight improvement from Quinnipiac’s July poll.