The Senate is set to vote Friday morning on the first step to confirming Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court following the release of an FBI report on allegations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh.

Senators had one day to review a confidential supplemental background check into Kavanaugh's behavior in the early-to-mid 1980s when he was in high school and college. The closely guarded collection of interviews is celebrated by Republican leaders as concrete proof that Kavanaugh did not harass or abuse women. Democrats say the interviews, which they originally requested, are incomplete and inconclusive.

The FBI report has done little to alleviate a bitter partisan fight over Kavanaugh's nomination. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says the Senate will proceed anyway on a Friday procedural vote that could pave the way for a final confirmation vote on Saturday.

"What we know for sure is the FBI report did not corroborate any of the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh," McConnell said at a press conference. "The second thing we know for sure is that there's no way anything we did would satisfy the Democrats."

Kavanaugh took an unusual step to boost his nomination Thursday evening, writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal expressing regret for the heated tone of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, including comments decrying Democratic attacks that was seen by some wavering senators as too partisan.

"I was very emotional last Thursday, more so than I have ever been. I might have been too emotional at times. I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said," Kavanaugh wrote.

McConnell needs 51 votes to clear the procedural hurdle on Friday. Republicans have enough votes to meet that bar on their own, but only if they win the support of Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, who have withheld judgement while the FBI completed its work.

All three spent hours in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol Thursday reviewing the roughly 45 pages of FBI interviews. Collins and Flake both say the investigation was thorough, but neither would say if they are now prepared to vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

Flake forced Republicans to launch the additional investigation last week after a tense negotiation with Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. Flake spent a large portion of the afternoon reviewing the FBI work and said he saw no new evidence to corroborate any of the claims against Kavanaugh, which Flake had previously indicated would mean he will vote to confirm.

Democrats saw something very different in the report. Several criticized Republicans for limiting the FBI investigation to just nine interviews. They said the process ignored many potential witnesses, including Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who first accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a high school party in the 1980's.

The FBI also did not interview Kavanaugh.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said those issues raised serious doubts about Kavanaugh and his qualifications.

"Judge Kavanaugh stated at his hearing that the individuals at the incident involving Dr. Ford refuted her version of events," Schumer said. "From their own public statements, we knew that to be false, and nothing in this report changes that."

Similar concerns moved Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., to announce Thursday that she would oppose Kavanaugh. Heitkamp is one of the most vulnerable Democrats on the ballot in November and has seen her poll numbers slip in recent weeks. She's running for re-election in a state president Trump won in 2016 by more than 35 points.

Heitkamp said she was troubled by Kavanaugh's aggressive appearance before the Senate Judiciary committee and the message his confirmation would send to women and girls across the country.

"When considering a lifetime appointment to Supreme Court, we must evaluate the totality of the circumstances and record before us," Heitkamp said in a statement. "In addition to the concerns about his past conduct, last Thursday's hearing called into question Judge Kavanaugh's current temperament, honesty, and impartiality."

Her opposition leaves Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., as the only undecided Democrat. He is also in a tough reelection campaign and was silent on Kavanaugh in the days leading up to the vote.

The nomination now hangs on the decisions of Collins, Murkowski, Flake and Manchin.</s>U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Thursday morning that the committee has received the supplemental background check on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as senators get their first look at the document.

In a series of Twitter posts, Grassley said U.S. senators will be able to view the report in a secure area, in agreement with Democrat ranking member Dianne Feinstein. The FBI supplemental report started after Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony last week on alleged sexual assault charges against Kavanaugh.

The results of the supplemental background check will not be open to the public. Kavanaugh’s rise to Supreme Court hangs in the balance as the current federal appeals court judge has fought to save his nomination after sexual misconduct charges from Ford and several other women.

According to CNN, Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell started paving the way for a procedural vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination on Friday, leading to a possible final vote on the nomination Saturday.

CNN wrote that the background check examined in more detail Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh, the judge’s denial, and other questions about the judge’s character. The report gives some background on Kavanaugh’s candor and truthfulness in fighting the allegations, the network stated.

Kavanaugh’s former Yale roommate James Roche told CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 that the judge lied about his past drinking during last week’s hearing.

“We were in a room together — our beds were 10 feet apart for a couple of months,” Roche said on the news show. “And what struck me and made me more interested in speaking out about it is not only did I know that he wasn’t telling, you know, the truth, I knew that he knew that he wasn’t telling the truth.”

With a slim two-seat majority, the public will be watching particularly the reaction of three Republican senators who could hold the swing votes to confirm or deny Kavanaugh’s seat on the Supreme Court.

Arizona’s Jeff Flake, who set the supplemental background check in motion last week by calling for it in exchange for his vote to move Kavanaugh’s nomination out of the Judiciary Committee, is one of the key Senate members.

The others include moderates Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. All three blasted President Donald Trump this week for comments he made during a rally in Mississippi where he appeared to mock Ford’s testimony.

“There’s no time and no place for remarks like that,” Flake said on NBC’s Today show Wednesday when asked about Trump’s comments. “To discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right, it’s just not right. I wish he hadn’t done it. It’s kind of appalling.”</s>WASHINGTON — A deeply divided Senate pushed Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination past a key procedural hurdle Friday, setting up a likely final showdown this weekend in a battle that's seen claims of long-ago sexual assault by the nominee threaten President Donald Trump's effort to tip the court rightward for decades.

The Senate voted 51-49 to limit debate, effectively defeating Democratic efforts to scuttle the nomination with endless delays. With Republicans clinging to a two-vote majority, one Republican voted to stop the nomination, one Democrat to send it further.

Of the four lawmakers who had not revealed their decisions until Friday, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jeff Flake of Arizona voted yes, as did Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted not to send the nomination to the full Senate.

After the vote Flake told reporters he is currently planning to vote yes when the final vote occurs.

Lawmakers might vote differently on the climactic confirmation roll call, and Collins told reporters that she wouldn't rule out doing so. The Maine Senator added that she would announce her decision by 3 p.m. Friday.

That left unclear whether Friday's tally signaled that the 53-year-old federal appellate judge was on his way to the nation's highest court. Confirmation would be a crowning achievement for Trump, his conservative base and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Trump tweeted shortly after Friday's vote, saying he was "very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting 'YES' to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!"

The vote occurred a day after the Senate received a roughly 50-page FBI report on the sexual assault allegations, which Trump ordered only after wavering GOP senators forced him to do so.

Republicans said the secret document — which described interviews agents conducted with 10 witnesses — failed to find anyone who could corroborate allegations by his two chief accusers, Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez. Democrats belittled the bureau's findings, saying agents constrained by the White House hadn't reached out to numerous other people with potentially important information.

The vote also occurred against a backdrop of smoldering resentment by partisans on both sides. That fury was reflected openly by thousands of boisterous anti-Kavanaugh demonstrators who bounced around the Capitol complex for days, confronting senators in office buildings and even reportedly near their homes.

On the Senate floor, lawmakers' comments underscored the lingering bitterness.

"What left wing groups and their Democratic allies have done to Judge Kavanaugh is nothing short of monstrous," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said on the chamber's floor before the vote. He accused Democrats of using destructive, unwarranted personal attacks on the nominee and even encouraging the protesters, saying, "They have encouraged mob rule."

Dianne Feinstein of California, that committee's top Democrat, said Kavanaugh's testimony at last week's dramatic Judiciary panel hearing should "worry us all," citing "a hostility and belligerence that is unbecoming" of a Supreme Court nominee.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the fight "a sorry epilogue to the brazen theft of Justice Scalia's seat." That reflected Democrats' lasting umbrage over Republicans' 2016 refusal to even consider Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama's nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia.

When Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July, Democrats leapt to oppose him, saying that past statements and opinions showed he'd be a threat to the Roe v. Wade case that assured the right to abortion. They said he also seemed ready to knock down President Barack Obama's health care law and to rule for Trump if federal authorities probing his 2016 campaign's connections to Russia initiate legal action.

But that evolved into a late-summer spectacle after Ford accused Kavanaugh of trying to rape her at an alcohol-infused high school gathering in 1982, when both were teenagers. Two other women also emerged and accused him of other incidents of sexual misconduct. Kavanaugh has denied all the charges.

Under pressure from wavering Republicans, GOP leaders agreed to an extraordinary Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week that mesmerized the nation as Ford nervously recounted her story and said she was "100 percent" certain that Kavanaugh was her attacker.

A fuming Kavanaugh strode into the same packed hearing room that afternoon and said he, too, was "100 percent" certain the incident had not occurred. He angrily accused Democrats of a "search and destroy" mission, fueled by their hatred of Trump.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Sen. Jeff Flake told reporters on Friday that he will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, barring “something big changes.”

The Arizona Republican voted for cloture earlier in the day, ending debate on the nominee and allowing the full vote to happen as early as Saturday.

The Republican was asked by a reporter if he planned to vote to confirm.

“Unless something big changes, but I don’t see it,” he replied as he got into a car outside of the Capitol building. “But anyway, I’m glad we had a better process.”

Flake gave Kavanaugh a “yes” vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday, with the proviso that the FBI further investigate the allegations of sexual assault made by Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh and any other credible allegations that had been made public by that time.

TRENDING: Watch: Crowd Boos Graham for Defending Kavanaugh, So He Boos Back

The FBI submitted its report on Thursday of this week, which was made available for senators to review.

After reading the bureau’s findings, Flake said there was nothing in the material to back up Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in the early 1980s when they were both in high school.

“Thus far we’ve seen no new credible corroboration, no new corroboration at all,” Flake said Thursday, according to The Hill.

On Friday, Flake was asked what he thought of fellow Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s decision to vote against allowing Kavanaugh’s confirmation to move forward to a full vote.

“I admire her a lot … a lot,” Flake said. “Everybody has to had to make their own decision, and I think the world of her.”

Alaska Native organizations, a key constituency of Murkowski, have been pressuring her to oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination, Reuters reported.

They have cited concerns that he would not fully recognize their tribal rights and seek to overturn President Barack Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act.

Murkowski was one of three GOP senators (including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona) who voted against the repeal of Obamacare in July 2017.

RELATED: Flake, Collins Speak Out on Results of FBI Investigation: ‘No Additional Corroborating Information’

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the one Democrat who crossed over to vote for Kavanaugh’s nomination to move forward on Friday.

What asked about Manchin’s vote for cloture, Flake said, “I admire him too.”

Manchin indicated he will also be voting to confirm Kavanaugh, as did Collins, Fox News reported.

As of Friday, 50 Republicans senators and Manchin have committed to voting for Kavanaugh, meaning even if a senator changed his or her mind, Vice President Mike Pence could cast the tie-breaking vote sending Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>The Senate vote on confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is certain to be close, even if the outcome is no longer suspenseful. Enough senators have indicated they will support him Saturday to put him over the edge, with a likely margin of two votes. That's barring a last-minute change of mind.</s>The Senate held a cloture vote Friday to send Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to a vote Saturday. What is a cloture vote and why is it important?A cloture vote ends debate on the subject in question - a nominee, a bill - anything on which the Senate might vote for. A cloture vote essentially says there is enough information to make a decision. Discussion may continue after a cloture vote, but an affirmative cloture vote is a greenlight to set the final vote.According to ABC correspondent Cokie Roberts, a senator's "aye" vote in cloture does not necessarily indicate support for the subject in question, but signals enough information gathered to make a decision. A no vote is typically a sure sign the senator will not vote for the subject in question, Roberts said.On Wednesday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed cloture that puts a time limit on debate and pushes the Senate toward a confirmation vote.Senate Republicans need a majority yes vote to confirm Kavanaugh after the FBI investigated several accusations of sexual assault and drunken behavior.A simple majority of the upper chamber voted Friday to move forward with a vote on whether to confirm Kavanaugh to the high court; 51 senators voted yes and 49 no.At least one senator -- Republican Susan Collins of Maine -- says her cloture vote to end the debate does not mean she will vote yes on Kavanaugh's nomination. She is expected to announce her decision Friday afternoon.If all Senate Democrats vote against Kavanaugh, the GOP can only afford to lose one Republican vote.One Republican -- Montana Senator Steve Daines -- won't be there. He's walking his daughter down the aisle at her wedding Saturday.That leaves Republicans Collins, Jeff Flake, and Lisa Murkowski, and Democrat Joe Manchin as swing votes.</s>WASHINGTON — Democrats and demonstrators vented rage and resistance but the Senate rolled toward approving Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination Saturday as President Donald Trump and Republicans approached an election-season triumph in the most electrifying confirmation battle in years.

Capping a venomous struggle that transfixed Americans when it veered into claims that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted women in the 1980s and his fierce denials, the 53-year-old conservative’s nomination was on track for afternoon approval. He seemed certain to win by a slender two votes in a near party-line roll call.

Trump weighed in Saturday morning on behalf of the man he nominated in July and who as justice would tilt the court rightward, possibly for decades. “Big day for America!” he tweeted.

Democrats paraded to a nearly empty Senate chamber overnight to lambast the nominee. They said he’d push the court farther right, including possible sympathetic rulings for Trump. And they said his record and fuming testimony at a now famous Senate Judiciary Committee hearing showed he lacked the fairness, temperament and even honesty to become a justice.

But the fight was defined by sexual assault accusations, especially Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that a drunken Kavanaugh tried raping her at a 1982 high school gathering. Kavanaugh vehemently denied all those claims.

All but one Republican lined up behind him, arguing that a truncated FBI investigation turned up no corroborating witnesses and that Kavanaugh had sterling credentials for the court. Exactly one month from elections in which House and Senate control are in play, Democrats tried making sure that female voters were paying attention.

“Republicans are saying: your voices just don’t matter,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Saturday. “Your experiences, your trauma, your pain, your heartache, your anger — none of that matters. Their message is, ‘we don’t have to listen. We don’t have to care. Sit down and be quiet.'”

As she spoke, several hundred anti-Kavanaugh demonstrators chanted on the lawn between the Capitol and the Supreme Court. “We believe survivors,” they yelled. Protesters have roamed Capitol Hill corridors and grounds daily, raising anxieties and underscoring the passions the nomination fight has aroused.

On Friday, announcements of support by Republican Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia made Saturday’s confirmation vote an anticlimactic formality. That roll call will end on a contest fought against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and Trump’s unyielding support of his nominee.

Republicans control the Senate by a meager 51-49. Support from Collins and Manchin would give Kavanaugh the majority he needs.

In the moment that made clear Kavanaugh would prevail, Collins delivered a speech saying that Ford’s Judiciary Committee telling of the alleged 1982 assault was “sincere, painful and compelling.” But Collins said the FBI had found no corroborating evidence from witnesses whose names Ford had provided.

“We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy,” said Collins, perhaps the chamber’s most moderate Republican.

Manchin used an emailed statement to announce his support for Kavanaugh moments after Collins finished talking. Manchin, the only Democrat supporting the nominee, faces a competitive re-election race next month in a state Trump carried in 2016 by 42 percentage points.

Manchin expressed empathy for sexual assault victims. But he said that after factoring in the FBI report, “I have found Judge Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist who will follow the Constitution.”

Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a fellow moderate and a friend of Collins, became the only Republican to say she opposed Kavanaugh. She said on the Senate floor Friday evening that Kavanaugh is “a good man” but his “appearance of impropriety has become unavoidable.”

In a twist, Murkowski said she will state her opposition but vote “present” as a courtesy to Kavanaugh supporter Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who is attending his daughter’s wedding in Montana. That procedure lets a senator offset another’s absence without affecting the outcome, and will allow Kavanaugh to win by the same two-vote margin he’d have received had both lawmakers voted.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who has repeatedly battled Trump and will retire in January, said he’d vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation “unless something big changes.”

Vice President Mike Pence planned to be available Saturday in case his tie-breaking vote was needed, which now seems unlikely.

In a procedural vote Friday that handed Republicans an initial victory, senators voted 51-49 to limit debate, defeating Democratic efforts to scuttle the nomination with endless delays.

When Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July, Democrats leapt to oppose him, saying that past statements and opinions showed he’d be a threat to the Roe v. Wade case that assured the right to abortion. They said he also seemed ready to rule for Trump if federal authorities probing his 2016 campaign’s connections to Russia try to pursue him in court.

Yet Kavanaugh’s pathway to confirmation seemed unfettered until Ford and two other women emerged with sexual misconduct allegations from the 1980s.

Kavanaugh would replace the retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was a swing vote on issues such as abortion, campaign finance and same-sex marriage.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Matthew Daly, Padmananda Rama, Ken Thomas and Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.</s>Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh won a narrow victory in a first test vote in the Senate on Friday, as a pair of key Senators announced they would support President Donald Trump’s choice for the U.S. Supreme Court, all but guaranteeing that Kavanaugh will be approved by the full Senate on Saturday, capping weeks of a highly charged political confirmation fight on Capitol Hill.

Several hours after the Senate voted 51 to 49 to force an end to debate on the Kavanaugh nomination, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) went to the floor to announce she would support Kavanaugh in Saturday’s final vote, delivering the key vote for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

Labeling the confirmation process a ‘caricature of a gutter-level political campaign,’ Collins said “special interest groups wrongly whipped their followers into a frenzy” about the Kavanaugh choice.

“One can only hope that the process has hit rock bottom with this Kavanaugh nomination,” Collins said, in a rebuke to vocal opponents of the judge.

On the issue of sexual misconduct allegations leveled against Kavanaugh by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Collins said she believes that Ford is the victim of a sexual assault, but says there was simply no corroborating evidence to pin that on the judge.

“I do not believe that these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court,” Collins said, even as she said the MeToo movement ‘is real,’ and criticized advisers to Dr. Ford, over how they handled her private letter to a Democratic lawmaker in Congress.

Collins had been heavily targeted – both at home in Maine and here on Capitol Hill – by groups opposed to the President’s choice for the Supreme Court.

In fact, the Maine Senator had barely gotten a few words out on the Senate floor when demonstrators in the Senate galleries interrupted her, yelling, “Vote no!”

The announcement by Collins gave GOP leaders and the White House 50 votes in favor of Kavanaugh – the bare minimum, when paired with a possible tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence.

Earlier on Friday, Collins had joined a slender majority of Senators in voting to shut off debate on the Kavanaugh nomination, setting up a final vote around 5 pm on Saturday afternoon, if all remaining debate time is used.

One Senator from each party broke ranks on that vote – Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) voted for cloture, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) broke with the White House and voted against proceeding to a final vote.

Moments after the announcement by Collins, Manchin released a statement saying he would vote for Kavanaugh on Saturday, all but guaranteeing a clear majority for President Trump’s nominee.

Democrats could only stand on the sidelines and watch, knowing they needed help from several Republican Senators to sink the Kavanaugh nomination, as Democrats failed to deliver an embarrassing rebuke to President Trump.

“On every level, Brett Kavanaugh has completely disqualified himself to sit on the highest court in our land,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), as Democrats took to the floor to reject the Kavanaugh nomination.

“Evidence shows Kavanaugh has lied repeatedly,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). “Liars do NOT belong on the Supreme Court.”

“This was not a search for the truth,” said Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), as Democrats bitterly complained about what they said was a less-than-robust investigation by the FBI of allegations surrounding Judge Kavanaugh.

“Judge Kavanaugh’s positions, as well as his temperament, are not befitting of the Supreme Court,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

“We will not only be judged by voters this November; we will be judged by history,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE).

But Democrats didn’t have the votes to carry the day, and as of now – Republicans seem like they will be proclaiming victory on Saturday, both in the Senate, and at the White House for allies of President Trump.</s>GOP Senator Shelly Moore Capito says she will vote to confirm U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Captio says she made the decision after she was briefed on an FBI background investigation on sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is expected to make an announcement today on whether he will vote in favor or against Kavanaugh’s nomination.</s>WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Friday she will vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, all but ensuring that a deeply riven Senate will elevate the conservative jurist to the nation’s highest court despite allegations that he sexually assaulted women decades ago.

The dramatic Senate floor announcement by perhaps the chamber’s most moderate Republican ended most of the suspense over a tortuous, election-season battle that had left Kavanaugh’s fate in doubt for nearly a month after the first accusation against him. It all but assured a victory for President Donald Trump’s quest to move the Supreme Court rightward, perhaps for decades, and a satisfying win for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the GOP’s conservative base.

With Republicans controlling the chamber by a narrow 51-49, Collins’ “yes” vote essentially assured a minimum of 50 votes for Kavanaugh. Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a fellow moderate and friend of Collins, has indicated that she will vote no, calling Kavanaugh “a good man” but maybe “not the right man for the court at this time.”

Vice President Mike Pence planned to be available Saturday in case his tie-breaking vote was needed.

Kavanaugh’s path to the court seemed unfettered until mid-September, when Christine Blasey Ford accused him of drunkenly sexually assaulting her in a locked bedroom at a 1982 high school gathering. Two other women later emerged with sexual misconduct allegations from the 1980s, all of which Kavanaugh has denied.

By Friday afternoon, the sole remaining undeclared senator was Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. Manchin, who faces a competitive re-election next month in a state Trump overwhelmingly carried in 2016, voted to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination in a key procedural vote earlier Friday.

Manchin announced he will vote in favor of the judge’s confirmation.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who’s repeatedly battled Trump and will retire in January, said he’d vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation “unless something big changes.”

In the procedural ballot, senators voted 51-49 to limit debate, defeating Democratic efforts to scuttle the nomination with endless delays. That was the day’s first GOP victory in the spellbinding battle that’s been fought against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and stalwart conservative support for Trump.

Deeply coloring the day’s events was a burning resentment by partisans on both sides, on and off the Senate floor.
A cloture vote on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh passes 51–49. A final confirmation vote is set to occur on Saturday.