The day after Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the supreme court, partisan battle lines in the Senate remained unmoved in the coming confirmation fight.

Democrats remained firmly committed to blocking Kavanaugh’s nomination while Republicans touted his qualifications. With the absence of Arizona senator John McCain due to ill health, the Senate currently is set up with 50 Republicans and 49 Democrats.

Democrats are specifically targeting two pro-choice Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. But the two Republicans dodged questions from reporters on Tuesday and gave little sign that they were opposed to the pick.

Collins praised Kavanaugh. “It’ll be very difficult for anyone to argue that he’s not qualified for the job. He’s clearly qualified for the job,” said the Maine Republican. She added that she still wanted “the opportunity to sit down with him one on one and get a better sense of his judicial philosophy”.

Senator Susan Collins on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Photograph: Al Drago/Getty Images

Murkowski told reporters that “there’s a lot to look at with Judge Kavanaugh” but said she needed a “more through review” to give “more of a reaction”.

Both senators voted for Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the DC circuit court of appeals in 2006.

Meanwhile, Republicans are hoping Kavanaugh can earn bipartisan support and are seeking to woo Democrats up for re-election in states that Trump won easily in 2016, such as Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Red state Democrats also kept an open mind on Tuesday. Progressive stalwart Sherrod Brown of Ohio said: “I will make a decision after meeting with him.” He said he was specifically concerned about how Kavanaugh might rule in cases concerning the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

“There are millions of Ohioans who would potentially lose their insurance if these five men on the court take away their consumer protections of people with preexisting conditions,” said Brown.

Doug Jones of Alabama told the Guardian: “Now we have a nominee, it’s a first step” but no further opinion on the nomination as of yet. “I am going to do my due diligence, exercise an independent review and independent judgment so don’t have a feeling one way or another,” said the Alabama Democrat.

Doug Jones speaks with reporters in the US Capitol subway on Tuesday. Photograph: Alex Edelman/Getty Images

One of four senators who is already facing a $1.4m ad campaign from those who want to see Kavanaugh confirmed, Jones expressed his disappointment in the phenomenon. “I think it’s a damn shame that people spend millions of dollars in political campaign for supreme court justice. We need to get back to what the framers thought.”

One new wrinkle emerged as Democrats added criticism of Kavanaugh’s views of executive authority to long-planned critiques that a Trump nominee would seek to invalidate the Affordable Care Act and overturn Roe v Wade.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer charged that Trump “chose the candidate who he thought would best protect him from the Mueller investigation” while Cory Booker of New Jersey warned darkly that Trump “chose the one person that has written that he should have immunity from any investigation and from any kind of prosecution it might result in”.

The controversy stems from a 2009 law review article that Kavanaugh wrote where he argued that Congress should consider a law exempting a sitting president from prosecutions. He thought that impeachment was an adequate check, “if a president does something dastardly”.

This critique was brushed aside by Republicans. Jeff Flake of Arizona said of the article: “Frankly that was back when Obama was president, so if someone was trying to draw a line about him being easy on Trump that’s not there.”

No confirmation hearings have yet been scheduled for Kavanaugh but the judicial nominee is scheduled to meet with Orrin Hatch of Utah, a seven-term senator and former chair of the Senate judiciary committee, on Wednesday.