Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told Politico that Schumer “knows better” than to try to pressure her to vote a certain way.
“He doesn’t come to me and say: ‘You’ve got to vote with us on this.’ He knows I’ll tell him to take a flyin’ leap,” she said.
Then he’ll say,”Claire, you remember those election funds you asked for because you’ll lose in the midterms?”
“I’m going to do what I think is right. It has nothing to do with the party.”
Claire voted against Gorsuch, but this is different, it’s an election year and elections are the only thing that Claire cares about. Things aren’t looking good for her and her tired old tricks. Missouri has a referendum in August on the question of right to work. The Democrats are behind right now, and if Right to Work is confirmed (already signed by the Governor), then Claire will vote for Kavanaugh.
I think that at least five Democrat Senators will vote to confirm and it may be many more. The smartest thing for Schumer to do is to turn his caucus loose. Vote the way that helps them in the mid-term, will make this issue go away on election day. They will need to keep the Kabuki dance going for a while for reasons to keep the base on their reservation, but the party leaders are never going to tell Democrat Senators to commit suicide.