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ON SEPTEMBER 16th America learned the identity of a woman who says she was assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, while in high school. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor in California, told the Washington Post that as a 17-year-old, Mr Kavanaugh, with the help a male friend, cornered her in a bedroom at a party and pinned her to a bed. Mr Kavanaugh then allegedly groped her, as he tried to remove the 15-year-old’s clothes. When she tried to scream, he covered her mouth with his hand, she said. The accuser, now 51, said she feared Mr Kavanaugh might inadvertently “kill” her. She managed to extricate herself from the men, whom she described as “stumbling drunk”, and lock herself in a bathroom before fleeing the house. Her lawyer has since said that Ms Ford is willing to publicly testify before a Senate panel set to vote this week on Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Will this imperil Mr Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court? It would be a mistake to count him out. Mr Trump won the presidency a few weeks after a video of him surfaced in which he bragged of grabbing women “by the pussy”. The voters this time round are senators, but there is little evidence that the 51 Republican members of the Senate have scruples strong enough to overcome their appetite for seating right-leaning Supreme Court justices. Some seem to have tolerated Mr Trump’s behaviour chiefly because of his promise to leave a deeply conservative, long-lasting imprint on America’s judiciary.

The allegations, which Mr Kavanaugh “categorically and unequivocally” denies, have prompted Democrats to demand a delay in the Senate’s Judiciary Committee vote scheduled for September 20th. The allegations appear to have troubled several Republican senators, too. Senator Jeff Flake, a sharp critic of the president who nonetheless votes with him nearly 85% of the time, said he was “not comfortable voting” to send Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate floor until he learned more about the accusations. Senator Lindsey Graham said he would “gladly listen” to Ms Ford’s story “and compare that against all other information we have received” about the nominee. Two Republican senators who are not on the 21-member committee, Bob Corker and Lisa Murkowski, urged their colleagues to invite Ms Ford to testify before they vote. Only Ms Murkowski explicitly raised the possibility of delaying the vote, which could scuttle Senator Chuck Grassley’s plan to bring Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination before the full Senate during the week of September 24th and confirm him in time for the Supreme Court’s first arguments of the term on October 1st.

The White House, meanwhile, suggested that it was continuing to stand by Mr Kavanaugh but that it expected Ms Ford to testify. “This woman should not be insulted and she should not be ignored,” Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to Mr Trump, told Fox News.

Because the Judiciary Committee is comprised of 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats, a single Republican defector would be enough to gum up the smooth-running confirmation machine Mr Grassley has overseen since Mr Trump tapped Mr Kavanaugh in July. But if Ms Ford does testify this week and Mr Kavanaugh persuasively denies the accusations under oath, the committee could still manage a vote on September 20th or 21st—and concerned Republicans may give the nominee the benefit of the doubt. Once in the hands of the full Senate, with a 51-to-49 Republican majority, Mr Kavanaugh probably enjoys better chances than the sub-50% odds reflected in the prediction markets in the hours following the publication of the Washington Post story. Senator Susan Collins, touted as a possible Republican vote against Mr Kavanaugh, seemed largely unperturbed by the allegations. In a telephone call, she told CNN, “he was very emphatic in his denial”.

Electoral politics were behind Mr Grassley’s stonewalling of Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick, in 2016. They are behind his insistence that Mr Kavanaugh’s confirmation proceed full-steam ahead, missing nominee documents and allegations of sexual violence notwithstanding. With mid-term elections only 50 days away, and Democrats within striking distance of winning control of the Senate, Republicans will do whatever is required to secure a fifth conservative Supreme Court seat while they still hold the reins. If another accusation is made against Mr Kavanaugh, or if he fails to deliver a credible denial of Ms Ford’s allegations to the Senate, the White House may drop him and fast-track a new nominee. But for now it is probably unrealistic for Democrats to expect Ms Ford’s 35-year-old allegations to bring Mr Kavanaugh down in a legislative body controlled by Republicans.

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