More People Believe Christine Blasey Ford Than Brett Kavanaugh According To A New Poll
More Americans say they believed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about her alleged sexual assault at a 1982 party than Kavanaugh’s denials that he was the attacker, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
Respondents to the poll who said that they believed Blasey Ford came in at 45 percent, making a massive jump from the 32 percent who believed her prior to her public testimony.
Only a third of respondents thought Kavanaugh was being honest, up only slightly from 26 percent, where it sat prior to him testifying.
Ford’s testimony about her alleged sexual assault at the hands of a then-17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge appears to have touched a nerve with the American public.
Before the hearing, 44 percent of poll respondents said they were unsure about which one to believe. After the hearing, that number plummeted to only 22 percent.
This shift towards believing women who report sexual assault, possibly a result of the #MeToo movement, represents a major difference from how the public felt about the sexual misconduct allegations brought against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill.
According to a 1991 CBS/New York Times poll, 58 percent of respondents believed Thomas over Hill, who only 24 percent believed.
A new NPR/@NewsHour/Marist poll finds 45 percent of Americans think Christine Blasey Ford is telling the truth, compared to 33 percent who believe Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. https://t.co/r9CDG5D7A7
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) October 3, 2018
“If it remains ‘he said, she said,’ the benefit of the doubt is very different than 1991, and it goes to Ford not Kavanaugh,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, told NPR. “It shows the reaction to the testimony and does show an underlying change in attitude than 27 years ago.”
According to the poll, who believes whom seems split by what side of the aisle they’re already on.
Men are split almost evenly on who they believe, 39 percent for Kavanaugh and 37 percent for Ford.
Women, on the other hand, seem overwhelmingly to side with Ford, with 52 percent saying they believe her and only 27 percent saying they believe Kavanaugh.
That gap evaporates quickly when split by party, however.
Nearly 80 percent of Democratic men say they believe Ford, along with 74 percent of Democratic women.
Republicans, however, sided with Kavanaugh. Seventy-seven percent of men said they believe Kavanaugh, as do 73 percent of women.
On top of that, a majority of Republicans said they still think Kavanaugh should be confirmed regardless of whether the allegations are true or not.
A majority of Republicans — 54 percent — say they think Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed regardless of whether sexual misconduct allegations against him are true, according to a new NPR/Marist poll. https://t.co/cwOHFZ225p
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) September 26, 2018
“Partisanship is really the driving force,” Miringoff noted, pointing out that he felt partisanship is the “most dominant” force “in dividing public opinion.”
