Monmouth University Poll director Patrick Murphy on Wednesday said that the majority of the public believed then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill after their hearings on her sexual harassment allegations against him in 1991.
“What we saw after the actual hearings with Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas when these charges came out, the public actually shifted and said they were more likely to believe Thomas than Hill, and they actually supported his appointment to the Supreme Court,” Murphy told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on “What America’s Thinking.”
“It’s going to be interesting if we still see the same kind of shift here after we hear from both Kavanaugh and Hill,” he continued.
Fifty-two percent of Americans said they wanted to see a vote in favor of Thomas in July of 1991, according to a CNN/Gallup poll.
Months after Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991, the number of Americans who said the Senate should have confirmed Thomas rose to 58 percent.
Gallup also found that 48 percent of Americans said they believed Thomas, while only 29 percent said they believed Hill after her testimony.
Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation process has been upended by three sexual misconduct allegations dating back to his time in high school and college.
Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of holding her down, groping her and attempting to remove her clothes during a high school party in 1982, while Deborah Ramirez has claimed he exposed himself without her consent during a gathering at Yale University a few years later.
Attorney Michael Avenatti released the identity of a client accusing Brett Kavanaugh of being present for a “gang rape” of which she was a victim in the 1980s.
Julie Swetnick does not accuse Kavanaugh of attacking her but says he was present at a party where she was drugged with “Quaaludes or something similar” and attacked.
Kavanaugh has denied all three of the allegations.
— Julia Manchester
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