U.S. Senate advances Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to a final vote with Manchin’s help

The Unit­ed States Sen­ate has vot­ed by the nar­row­est of mar­gins to end debate on Brett Kavanaugh­’s nom­i­na­tion to the U.S. Supreme Court and pro­ceed to a final vote, mov­ing the Par­ty of Trump clos­er to its goal of adding a mil­i­tant right wing jus­tice on the Supreme Court bench to replace Antho­ny Kennedy.

Despite the out­come of the just-held pro­ce­dur­al vote, Kavanaugh­’s con­fir­ma­tion is still not a sure thing because some of the sen­a­tors who vot­ed for Kavanaugh a few min­utes ago haven’t pledged to sup­port him in a final vote.

Every Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor except for Joe Manchin vot­ed to block Kavanaugh­’s nom­i­na­tion, and every Repub­li­can sen­a­tor except for Lisa Murkows­ki vot­ed to move it for­ward. This result­ed in a roll call vote of fifty-one to forty-nine.

Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Susan Collins and Jeff Flake have not defin­i­tive­ly said how they’ll vote on final con­fir­ma­tion. Collins has said she’ll announce her deci­sion lat­er today. Murkows­ki would seem to be a no based on her pro­ce­dur­al vote.

As for Manchin, it would seem he has thrown his lot in with Trump. Of course, he could switch his vote on final con­fir­ma­tion and say his pro­ce­dur­al yes vote was only in sup­port of giv­ing Kavanaugh con­sid­er­a­tion by the Senate.

If Manchin sup­ports Kavanaugh­’s con­fir­ma­tion, then Murkows­ki, Collins, and Flake would all need to vote nay in order for the nom­i­na­tion to fail, because Mike Pence can break a tie in favor of Don­ald Trump and Mitch McConnell.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west on the pro­ce­dur­al vote was not along par­ty lines because Lisa Murkows­ki vot­ed nay.

VOTING AYE: Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Mike Crapo and Jim Risch (ID); Dan Sul­li­van (AK), Steve Daines (MT)

VOTING NAY: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell (WA); Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (OR), Jon Tester (MT); Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Lisa Murkows­ki (AK)

Mon­tana’s Steve Daines has pre­vi­ous­ly said he would not be in D.C. tomor­row no mat­ter what due to the wed­ding of his daugh­ter, which threat­ened to put Mitch McConnell and Repub­li­cans in a big bind since they can’t spare any votes.

How­ev­er, a few min­utes ago, Daines tweet­ed: “Just cast my vote for Judge Kavanaugh get­ting him one step clos­er onto #SCOTUS. We spoke last night, and I assured him, I will be back to vote YES this week­end if need­ed. Look­ing for­ward to call­ing Judge Kavanaugh, Jus­tice Kavanaugh.”

What Daines seems to be say­ing is he’ll make Kavanaugh­’s nom­i­na­tion his pri­or­i­ty, even if that means upend­ing his daugh­ter’s wed­ding plans.

Got­ta love the Par­ty of Trump.