To Kavanaugh or Not to Kavanaugh: That is the Polarizing Question

Abstract

On October 6, 2018, the US Senate confirmed Brett Kavanaugh with the narrowest margin for a successful confirmation since 1881 and where the senators voted overwhelmingly along party lines. In this paper, we examine whether the political polarization in the Senate is reflected among the general public. To do so, we analyze the views of more than 128 thousand Twitter users. We show that users supporting or opposing Kavanaugh's nomination were generally using divergent hashtags, retweeting different Twitter accounts, and sharing links from different websites. We also examine characterestics of both groups.