in red states:
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin (D)
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D)
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey Jr. (D)
Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly (D)
North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D)
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D)
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill (D)
Florida Senator Bill Nelson (D)
Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow (D)
Montana Senator Jon Tester (D)
To these 10 Democrat senators in red states, I would add possible pickups or possible flips on the nomination at least on cloture:
New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich (D)
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (D)
Maine Senator Angus King (I)
This amounts to 13 Democrat senators and, assuming the Republicans hold all of their own, Republicans would need 9 Democrats to break the filibuster. I have heard it reported that 7 Democrats have declared they would not vote to sustain a filibuster although I have no idea who they might be.
If so, the Republicans need only 2 more Democrats to break the filibuster, the odds of breaking the filibuster are therefore high, the odds against the Democrats initiating a filibuster have just improved.
Mitch McConnell has declined to say that he will go nuclear but evidently minority leader Schumer has declared that the Democrats will filibuster. If McConnell fails to go nuclear to save this nominee it will cause a huge rupture in the Republican Party with significance for the 2018 election and probably cost McConnell is control of the Senate. In any event, McConnell has said that the nominee will be confirmed, leaving himself exposed if the filibuster is not broken while McConnell sits passive.
My view is the filibuster should be done away with because the Democrats will simply invoke it or dismiss it as it conveniences them and by retaining it we simply forfeit the initiative and the timing to Democrats. It is time all Republican senators candidly told the people that since Robert Bork every nomination is purely an ideological test and it has been such on the left but, sadly, a it has been a pandering fest on the right. It is time Republicans told their constituents they were joining the battle and not conceding the field when Democrat presidents nominate. The filibuster has been no use to Republicans and it has too often in too many guises served only to give cover to Rinos.
