Print Column: The Fight Over Kavanaugh Is Tanking Heitkamp’s Campaign
MINOT, N.D. — By the time you read this the U.S. Senate may very well have voted on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Or maybe not. Writing before my deadline I won’t hazard a guess on an outcome from this partisan inquisition.
There is one conclusion we can reach, however. The mean-spirited, thoroughly repugnant crusade against Kavanaugh by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s political party has created a backlash which has damaged her re-election campaign.
I made this argument in my last print column, pointing to a survey commissioned by North Dakota’s NBC News affiliates which showed the Democrat’s challenger, Congressman Kevin Cramer, with a 10-point lead.
Cramer, a Republican, has led in every single poll released to the public since February, but until the Kavanaugh fight began those leads were consistently small.
Now Cramer has opened up a big lead in two back-to-back polls this week, including the one from the NBC affiliates and another commissioned by Fox News showing him with a 12-point lead.
Democrats, meanwhile, are doing damage control.
