On Friday morning, the Senate held a test vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
The vote (to end debate and advance the nomination) was critical and comes a day ahead of the final vote. This was the final procedural hurdle for Kavanaugh’s controversial and at times extraordinarily contentious nomination.
While the Senate got the votes to advance this farce to a final, Saturday decision, the GOP lost Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted no. Notably, Sen. Manchin voted yes to advancing the nomination.
Critically, Susan Collins is set to announce whether she will support Kavanaugh in the final vote later Friday afternoon at 3 PM.
Republicans need some combination that sees at least two of the four on-the-fence Senators (Collins, Manchin, Flake and Murkowski) vote “yes” tomorrow in order to get Kavanaugh across the finish line.
The fact that Murkowski voted no on cloture clearly indicates she’s lost to the GOP. Flake has a penchant for being, well, “flaky”, which means his “yes” procedural vote on Friday isn’t necessarily indicative of how he will come down over the weekend.
Again, Susan Collins is obviously critical.
