Kavanaugh Surge Still Strong Two Weeks Before Election Day

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, after an historically bitter Senate battle, galvanized Republicans and conservatives in the immediate aftermath. But will the enthusiasm carry through to Election Day, November 6.

There are multiple signs it will.

“There’s been some concern about the intensity around Republican motivation,” Potomac Strategy Group President Matt Mackowiak told LifeZette. “It was potentially a quick burst of enthusiasm and then it was going to recede and that the long-term benefit would be limited.”

“There’s a lot of data on this, and there’s a lot of views on this. There are some people that I trust and respect who think it’s already receding. There are some other people that I respect that think it’s still very strong.”

One place where there is little doubt about the Kavanaugh (pictured above left) surge’s continuing intensity is Texas. President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign said more than 100,000 people RSVP’d for Monday’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) rally at Houston’s 19,000-seat Toyota Center arena.

The demand was so great the campaign opted to turn the event into a huge tailgater, providing food, live entertainment and multiple big screens for those outside to see and hear what is happening on the inside before and during the president’s speech.

Related: Red Wave? Dem Pollster Sees Republican Surge in Kavanaugh Aftermath

Republican pollster John McLaughlin noted Friday that the surge likely varies somewhat depending upon geographic region and demographics, but he believes the attacks on Kavanaugh generally appear to have backfired. McLaughlin is president of the Alexandria, Virginia-based survey research and strategic services company McLaughlin & Associates.

What were small but clear leads in states like Indiana, West Virginia, and Montana have either narrowed significantly or turned into measurable Republican leads. He noted that the impact has been the most positive in states Trump won.

“I am seeing it ebb a little bit but in districts the president didn’t win in the first place. It might have gotten more Trump voters out, but it’s not enough to turn the tide of anti-Trump voters,” McLaughlin told LifeZette. “So there was a Kavanaugh effect and it might be ebbing a little but there are two weeks to go.”

Republicans saw a nearly instant surge in enthusiasm following Kavanaugh’s October 6 swearing-in. Rasmussen Reports found in a survey released a few days later that 62 percent of Republicans are more likely to vote because of the bitter Kavanaugh confirmation process, compared to 54 percent of Democrats.

The Rasmussen survey also found voters are now evenly split between the two sides on the generic ballot. The Republican National Committee later announced that it has generated 50 million volunteer voter contacts in another indication of greatly increased enthusiasm.

“I think it definitely galvanized Trump supporters,” McLaughlin said. “I think some people in the middle gave Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt and didn’t like the fact he was being derailed by things that were not true.”

Related: Media Overwhelmingly ‘Rigged’ Against Kavanaugh, MRC Study Says

McLaughlin added that people rejected the idea of having to prove your own innocence because it goes against what the country represents. The fight and victory also woke up Trump supporters who weren’t motivated to vote going into the election since their guy already won.

“So far, if you look at the Senate polling, it’s clear the result of the Kavanaugh fight has been very beneficial to the Senate map,” Mackowiak said. “You see Texas, Tennessee, North Dakota, Missouri, and Arizona all move sharply in the Republican direction. On the House map, it’s more mixed.”

Mackowiak added that the basic political takeaway is how the Kavanaugh battle benefited Republicans, but it’s an open question about what that means for the House. Democrats have to win only one out of two of the remaining competitive seats in the House. Mackowiak noted that’s not a high hurdle, but it’s also not impossible for Republicans to hold the majority.

Mackowiak also sees the surge being most evident it Texas, where it started strong and remains so.

“From my standpoint, based on everything I’ve seen from polling I’ve reviewed, from crowds and volunteers, from the response we get throughout the state and from everything that I’m working on, it seems clear that the intensity has not receded. It’s still very high,” he said.

“In some ways, it has less to do with the short-term Supreme Court battle and more to do with how scared Republican voters are of Democrats having any power,” Mackowiak said. “I think that fear is going to remain constant for the next 17 days. It’s not about Brett Kavanaugh, and it was very much about that for the Democrats.”

McLaughlin said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) attempted a power play aimed more at the midterm elections than at the nomination.

“It was a pretty ruthless political play to try to destroy the guy with innuendos and baseless charges, but it was really a play to suppress the Trump vote,” McLaughlin said. “What happened initially was [in] states where Republicans were running close, they started pulling ahead like we saw in Missouri.”