The U.S. Senate voted 51-49 Friday morning to move Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to a final vote, which is expected to take place this Saturday.
Senators now have up to 30 hours of debate.
Prior to Friday’s vote, which marks the final procedural hurdle for Kavanaugh, there was some worry that three key GOP moderates, including Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., would vote against moving the confirmation forward, effectively killing the judge’s chances.
But of these three holdouts, only Murkowski voted no.
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Almost as important as the vote itself is how certain key senators voted. If their support for moving Kavanaugh’s nomination forward is any indication of how they’ll ultimately vote to confirm, then it looks like judge has this thing in the bag (the key word here is “looks”).
Collins and Flake voted “yea” on the motion to move Kavanaugh. Flake said later that he plans to confirm President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee unless something “big changes.” Collins could ultimately vote “no” this weekend, but her decision Friday morning suggests this is unlikely.
Murkowski, for her part, explained Friday she just doesn’t think Kavanaugh is a good candidate.
"I made – took the very, very difficult vote that I did. I believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a good man, I believe that he is a good man, it just may be that in my view he’s not the right man for the court at this time,” she told reporters.
At this point, there’s no good reason to suspect there’s a chance she’ll vote to support Kavanaugh. It may be best to just put her in the “no” column and remove her from the calculation.
The Senate is currently 51-49 in the GOP’s favor, and two Republican votes here will make all the difference. So, if Kavanaugh has Flake and Collins, this is a done deal when Vice President Mike Pence is brought in as the tie-breaking vote.
[More: Collins mum on Kavanaugh vote. Final decision 3pm]
However, bringing in Pence may not even be necessary. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., also supported the motion to move Kavanaugh’s confirmation to a final vote. The West Virginia senator has already said his confirmation vote will most likely reflect how he votes on cloture.
“He's never done that before, because he wouldn't want to have the John Kerry problem" of voting for something before voting for against it, a Senate source also told the Atlantic’s Elaina Plott in reference to whether Manchin would vote two separate ways.
So, for those of you playing at home who are still confused by all of this: The senate has one final vote to take on Kavanaugh. The judge needs only 51 votes to be confirmed. He can reliably count on 48 GOP senators to back him.
After Friday’s motion, it looks increasingly likely that Kavanaugh can add at least two more senators to that list (Collins and Flake) which would put him at 50. At that point, Republican leaders would bring in Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote. If Manchin also votes “yea” this weekend, that Kavanaugh at 51 and the Senate Majority doesn’t even need to call on Pence. Fifty-one votes and that’s ball game.
But a lot can happen in 30 hours.
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This article has been updated.