Kavanaugh met first with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who said, “I think the president made an outstanding nomination.”
Pence, standing alongside McConnell and a beaming Kavanaugh, called the judge “a man of impeccable credentials and character” and said he’s confident senators in both political parties will see the pick as “the most qualified and the most deserving nominee to the Supreme Court.”
Kavanaugh didn’t respond to shouted questions from reporters.
He was scheduled to meet later in the day with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
With a razor-thin 51-49 Senate majority, Republicans can’t afford to lose more than two votes in Kavanaugh’s confirmation if Democrats are united against him.
Such a slim margin for error means the fate of Kavanaugh’s nomination could be in the hands of two moderate Republican female senators who support abortion rights — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — as well as a handful of Democrats from states that voted for the president in the last election and who are facing the voters themselves this fall.
That list of Democrats includes Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and possibly Doug Jones of Alabama, who is not up for re-election in his very conservative state until 2020.
Many other Democrats — including several potential 2020 contenders — announced their intention to vote against Kavanaugh within minutes of Trump’s nomination on Monday night, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowing he “will oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have.”
Kavanaugh serves on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which often rules on major challenges to federal laws and policies. If confirmed, he would make the Supreme Court solidly conservative, joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch in a potential five-vote conservative majority.