Brett Kavanaugh’s opponents got a little extra time to fight his nomination when Sen. Jeff Flake called for a weeklong delay before a Senate confirmation vote. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Kavanaugh Confirmation From phone banks to pastries, liberal groups make last-minute push to stop Kavanaugh

Liberal and women’s advocacy groups are trying everything they can think of in a last-ditch effort to sink Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, from writing letters to newspapers to organizing phone banks — to bringing pastries to Capitol Hill.

The Center for Popular Democracy Action, a left-leaning advocacy group, is organizing a “brunch” this weekend in which a few hundred people will bring coffee and croissants to senators’ Washington offices, said Jennifer Flynn Walker, the group’s director of advocacy and mobilization.


They’ll be especially focused on Sens. Susan Collins (R-Me.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), all of whom are still being coy about their votes on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“It’s not just for us to bring them coffee to wake them up to the truth, it’s not just for us to bring a croissant to break bread with them,” Flynn Walker said. It’s to “share our stories as survivors of sexual assault, as people who are in desperate need of health care and who are incredibly worried that Brett Kavanaugh will be the deciding vote to take health care away from Americans [and] overturn Roe v. Wade.”

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Kavanaugh’s opponents got a little extra time to fight his nomination Friday when Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) called for a weeklong delay before a Senate confirmation vote, during which time he said the FBI should investigate allegations of sexual assault made against the judge.

The call for a delay, which Senate Republicans appeared likely to allow, came a day after Christine Blasey Ford gave emotional testimony Thursday about her claim that the judge sexually assaulted her when the two were in high school. Kavanaugh has denied all the allegations against him.

The unexpected delay bought liberal groups extra time — but it also caught them unprepared, some activists said, leaving them scrambling to launch last-minute efforts this weekend.

“A lot of the progressive groups kind of built their big plans up till and through this week because it was so unpredictable what was going to happen after that,” said Jesse Lee, vice president of communications at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the advocacy wing of the progressive think tank Center for American Progress. “People do have to start making their plans from scratch going into the weekend and next week.”

In the wake of Thursday’s hearing, liberal groups said they are making an additional push to mobilize voters in every state to both call and show up in person to Senate offices throughout the weekend to encourage lawmakers not to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“What we’re looking to do right now is to find ways to carry the energy, especially in what’s transpired in the last 18 hours,” said Erica Mauter, campaign director at MoveOn.org. “Phone calls are important, but actually showing up...you feel other people’s energy, it’s not just you.”

Members of NARAL Pro-Choice America will call Senate offices in Maine, Alaska, Arizona and West Virginia and hold events in Maine to pressure Collins, who Kavanaugh opponents have long thought might oppose him because she supports abortion rights.

“Today, there were over 200 people at Collins’ Portland office calling on her to vote no on Kavanaugh — more to come this weekend,” Amanda Thayer, a spokesperson for NARAL, told POLITICO. “We’ll continue to support events in key states.”

Kelley Robinson, national organizing director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that over the weekend the group’s local organizations will canvas across the country, including in Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan, Maine and Georgia.

“We really do believe building electoral power is the way to make it clear to folks that the Supreme Court is not another tool of the administration,” Robinson said.

