In one way, Mr. Trump and other Republicans approached this situation differently than in 1991 — careful, at least for now, not to directly challenge Dr. Blasey’s credibility and risk looking like they were attacking a victim of assault. Indeed, the message from Mr. Trump and congressional Republican leaders was that they wanted to hear from her, and they even agreed to a televised hearing.
Instead, Republicans focused on assailing Democrats for not bringing up the issue earlier and instead injecting it into the process only days before the Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on Thursday. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, complained that Democrats did not raise the matter either in closed session or in public hearings.
“But now — at the 11th hour, with committee votes on the schedule, after Democrats have spent weeks and weeks searching for any possible reason that the nomination should be delayed — now, they choose to introduce this allegation,” Mr. McConnell said.
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who was secretly contacted by Dr. Blasey in July, said she did not tell the rest of the panel at first because Dr. Blasey insisted on maintaining confidentiality. After word of her accusations surfaced last week, Dr. Blasey agreed to be identified in an interview published in The Washington Post and now says she would testify if asked.
One aspect of this fight that is strikingly different is the makeup of the Senate. During the Thomas hearings, there were only two female senators — Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, and Nancy Kassebaum, Republican of Kansas — and neither of them belonged to the all-male Judiciary Committee. Today, the Senate has 23 women — 17 Democrats and six Republicans — and four Democratic women serve on the Judiciary Committee.
The handling of the Thomas hearing, in fact, was instrumental in inspiring the so-called Year of the Woman with then-record numbers of female candidates in 1992 — including Ms. Feinstein. Female voters angered by the treatment of Ms. Hill helped defeat some Democratic senators who voted for Justice Thomas.
The California seat of Ms. Boxer, who did not run for re-election in 2016, has been taken over by Kamala Harris, a Democrat and the junior member of the Judiciary Committee, who challenged multiple elements of Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony during hearings at the beginning of September.
