With a Transformed Judiciary in Sight, McConnell ‘Will Not Be Intimidated’

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitch McConnell had just arrived at Reagan Washington National Airport on Monday afternoon to resume the battle over the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh when he was met by an unwelcoming committee — a group of women who angrily confronted him.

“Do you always turn your back on women like this?” one demanded of McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, as his security detail cleared the way. “Especially women of color who are all sexual assault victims?” asked another.

McConnell is not Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who was moved by similar protests to seek a new FBI inquiry into claims of sexual assault against Kavanaugh. McConnell, undeterred by his critics, instead stared straight ahead and marched through the concourse. And that is exactly how he is approaching the confirmation fight — marching straight ahead, unfazed by his opponents, toward his goal of seating Kavanaugh on the court.

“We will not be intimidated by these people,” McConnell declared Wednesday in another floor speech where his anger over the treatment of Kavanaugh spilled out. “There is no chance in the world that they’re going to scare us out of doing our duty.”

To McConnell, his nearly singular duty these days is filling federal court vacancies with conservatives, so with a second Supreme Court confirmation in less than two years in sight, he has a lot on the line. If he is successful, he will have secured a legacy of reshaping not just the lower courts, but the Supreme Court itself for years to come.

Failure, though, may leave McConnell having to shoulder the blame from President Donald Trump and conservatives who have always viewed him with suspicion. The Senate’s failure to repeal the health care law is fresh in their minds. They believe that if the nomination goes down, it will be because McConnell let the process get away from him and that he failed to sufficiently hold off Democrats determined to derail Kavanaugh. McConnell’s Republican allies say that, given the tumult and twists and turns of the Kavanaugh fight, McConnell should not be held responsible if the nomination goes awry in the next few days.

“Obviously Mitch has got his heart and soul in this,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. “He’s done everything he could. He’s done a tremendous job of fairly handling the unforeseen but challenging things that have happened. I think he’s acquitted himself well as a leader regardless of whether or not he’s successful on the vote.”

Democrats find McConnell’s complaints that Kavanaugh is being treated unfairly and that they are conspiring to destroy and delay an outstanding nominee a little hard to take given that McConnell was the mastermind of the decision to block President Barack Obama’s 2016 nomination of Merrick B. Garland and hold the seat open for a Republican president to fill.

“From the man who single-handedly delayed the filling of Justice Scalia’s seat for 10 months to complain about a one-week delay to get the truth — give me a break,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Wednesday. “It is classic diversionary, blame-the-other-person tactics when he himself is the master of delay. It is galling, appalling, to hear day after day the majority leader get on his high horse about delay, when he almost invented the word when it comes to judicial nominations.”

The nomination has not gone the way McConnell envisioned despite his initial warnings to the White House that Kavanaugh’s long history and paper trail in Washington would present complications. Still, despite objections by Democrats that he had lied to the Judiciary Committee about his service in the administration of President George W. Bush, Kavanaugh seemed a shoo-in. Then a letter surfaced from Christine Blasey Ford accusing him of sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers, she stepped forward, and the confirmation struggle took an extraordinary turn.

Even after the accusations became public, McConnell said Republicans were going to “plow right throw it” while guaranteeing that “in the very near future,” Kavanaugh would be taking his seat on the court. With such uncertainty enveloping the nomination, McConnell has recalibrated his message and is now only guaranteeing that there will be a vote as soon as this week.

Seemingly on the verge of victory last week, he also found his authority undercut by Flake and other Republicans who demanded a one-week delay for added investigation into the accusations instead of backing a final vote. Their position — and refusal to commit to Kavanaugh without more investigation — meant McConnell had to readjust his plans while warning that Democrats would not be satisfied with any inquiry and would use the added time to raise new objections.

McConnell believes he was proved right, and he has tried to reassert his authority. Asked Tuesday when wavering Republicans would be comfortable enough to allow a vote, McConnell responded that timing the vote fell under his control. “That’s a decision that I make,” he told reporters.

The conflict has spread into the upcoming midterm elections, potentially putting McConnell’s majority leader position at risk. Democrats say the fight is drawing female voters to their side and could help them topple McConnell. But his political lieutenants believe the polarizing court battle has been a boon to their chances to hold the Senate.

While stressing that the shift may not last, Senate Republican strategists say the Democratic attacks and media scrutiny of Kavanaugh have helped with one of their biggest challenges this year: closing the intensity gap with the left.

A new poll for NPR and the “PBS NewsHour” conducted by Marist College illustrates the rise in Republican enthusiasm. Over the summer, 10 percent more Democrats than Republicans said the midterm elections were “very important.” But now that difference is down to 2 percent: 82 percent of Democrats said the election is “very important” in the new survey released Wednesday, while 80 percent of Republicans said the same.

And private polling Republicans have conducted since last week’s hearing has shown a similar growth in enthusiasm among their voters, particularly in the sort of red states where control of the Senate will be decided. Party officials, for example, are growing increasingly confident that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will fend off Rep. Beto O’Rourke, in part because of rank-and-file conservative anger about the Kavanaugh controversy. A Republican survey taken after last week’s hearing showed Cruz leading O’Rourke by 8 points.

“I don’t know the durability of it, but we have seen a consolidation of Republican voters the likes of which we haven’t seen this cycle,” said Josh Holmes, one of McConnell’s top advisers, noting that for political purposes, it would be better if the confirmation vote were even closer to the election.

McConnell realizes the political risks, but the Supreme Court looms large with him. He has been nearly obsessed with the court since, while a young Senate staff member, he watched the Senate refuse to confirm not one, but two nominees of President Richard M. Nixon’s.

With all that he has at stake, McConnell’s allies expect him to give it his all.

“I think everybody knows that Mitch is doing everything he possibly can to get this across the finish line,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the chamber’s No. 3 Republican.