Posted on 03/30/2017 2:54:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Senators Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp on Thursday became the first Democrats to support the confirmation of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, giving Republicans two of eight Democratic votes needed to avoid a nasty fight on the U.S. Senate floor next week.
Both West Virginia's Manchin and North Dakota's Heitkamp are up for re-election next year in states that voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
"I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court justice," Manchin said in a statement.
"He has a record as a balanced, meticulous and well-respected jurist who understands the rule of law," Heitkamp said in a statement.
Another Democrat seen as on the fence, Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state, said on Thursday she would back an effort to block Gorsuch's confirmation....
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
This is all easy for those in tough senate elections next year.....I’ll bet there will be six or seven who “break ranks” with the dems to say they’ll vote for cloture. Every one of them will be in a tough reelection race and yet m they’ll stall at 58 or 59 votes and the nuclear option will come into play.
It’s hard to say. RealClearPolitics.com, CNN election results, and the NY Times all show Trump garnered a higher percentage of the vote in WY than he did in WV. But none of them agree on the exact percentages for each candidate. Wikipedia may be right if they got their totals form secretaries of state.
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