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Her vote either way would not have mattered. The Trump nuts, of which there are many in a state such as ND, would not vote for regardless of her vote. Even if she had voted for Kavanaugh, Trump would still have campaigned against her and demanded that his base vote her out.
Just curious whether you think or know that she has given up on winning her state. Why didn't Senator Heidi Heitkamp vote "yes" on Kavanaugh? For those of you who are going to say she made some moral decision to do the right thing, I'll remind you that we're talking about a politician in an election year who is currently behind in the polls with the Democrat Party rabid to win the Senate.
This is the other poll to which the CNN story above refers:https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com.../north-dakota/When the Democrats realized on Friday night, that Kavanaugh was going to be confirmed, why didn't they greenlight her to vote "yes" with her Senate seat in jeopardy of going to the Republicans next month? Or did they greenlight her to vote "yes" but she has just resigned herself to losing? Or is there something I don't know about her? Or are the Democrats planning something sketchy with the polls in ND so her vote on Kavanaugh doesn't matter, the goose is already cooked? Early voting in North Dakota begins Oct 29 (3 weeks from now).
She--gasp--voted her conscience. Hard to believe isn't it these days when people put party before morality.
From what Schumer said last week, sounds like he would have released them to vote yes if they wanted, as long as they waited until the GOP senators were whipped (all accounted for).
I was very surprised that only one of them did. We can only guess at the reasons. Maybe some considered it a vote of conscience, but more likely to me they feared a backlash from their own party. And a yes vote wasn't going to make them beloved by conservatives, but it sure would make them hated by liberals.
The problem is that it makes it that much tougher to take back the Senate in 2020, and that much tougher to block more conservative nominees if Trump is re-elected.
She--gasp--voted her conscience. Hard to believe isn't it these days when people put party before morality.
That wouldn't reek with so much hypocrisy had Sen. Schumer (D-NY) had not vowed to stop Kavanaugh's appointment using any means necessary on the day it was announced or Sen. Cardin (D-MD) agreeing at the same time that he was highly qualified but would vote No anyway.
She has to walk a fine line. Almost all her support comes from two cities: Fargo and Grand Forks, and her core supporters in those places oppose Kavanaugh. Democrats simply don't show up like Republicans, thus Dem candidates have to be even more conscious of getting their core voters to show at the polls.
Who has the greatest chance of paying a price for their vote is Murkowski, and it was her reasoning that will end up hurting her more than the vote itself.
Murkowski isn't up for re-election until 2022, and she has won re-election before as a write-in candidate after losing the Republican primary in 2010. There will probably be at least one more Supreme Court appointment to vote on in the next four years, and Alaska voters have many other criteria to evaluate their politicians. With its distance from DC the state is also kind of inconvenient for Trump to drop in for rallies and chastise her in front of his adoring crowds.
As for Heitkamp, I think North Dakota is simply far too Republican to vote otherwise these days. The state is one of the most rural in the nation and dominated by an agriculture and energy economy, and those traits don't fit with the urban, post-industrial oriented Democratic party of 2018. She is likely too far behind to salvage re-election regardless of how she voted for Kavanaugh.
Murkowski isn't up for re-election until 2022, and she has won re-election before as a write-in candidate after losing the Republican primary in 2010. There will probably be at least one more Supreme Court appointment to vote on in the next four years, and Alaska voters have many other criteria to evaluate their politicians. With its distance from DC the state is also kind of inconvenient for Trump to drop in for rallies and chastise her in front of his adoring crowds.
As for Heitkamp, I think North Dakota is simply far too Republican to vote otherwise these days. The state is one of the most rural in the nation and dominated by an agriculture and energy economy, and those traits don't fit with the urban, post-industrial oriented Democratic party of 2018. She is likely too far behind to salvage re-election regardless of how she voted for Kavanaugh.
Incorrect about North Dakota. Yes, it is very red, but it is possible for Dems to win there if you push for goodies in the farm bill, if you support the energy industry, as Heitkamp does, and if your positions on social issues are not too fr out of the mainstream (in other words, if you don't conform to the Dem platform). North Dakota had two Democratic senators for many years up until 2010.
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