■ Many women line up in support of Brett Kavanaugh.

Senator’s aide says calls from women split evenly

COLUMBIA, S.C. — As the Senate is divided on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, so too are women across the country.

Female voices have echoed throughout the U.S. Senate this past week demanding that male senators justify their support for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination despite an allegation of high school sexual assault.

But other women have spent hours calling Senate offices in support of Kavanaugh, condemning what they saw as an anti-Republican ploy that’s damaged not only Kavanaugh’s reputation and livelihood but also his accuser’s.

To Hannah King, a college senior from Bristol, Tennessee, Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of a drunken attack by Kavanaugh at a 1982 party when both were in high school were jarring and scary. But while King expressed empathy for Ford, she also said she’s concerned about the timing of Ford’s allegations, which surfaced publicly only after Kavanaugh, already a federal judge, was nominated to the Supreme Court.

“It was too timely and strategic,” said King, 21. “Anything like that makes you question how true it is.”

That sentiment was shared by Sarah Round, 69, a retired elementary school teacher from Newport Center, Vermont, who felt empathy for Ford but not at the expense of Kavanaugh’s reputation and future.

“Possibly something happened to her,” Round said. “But I think she embellished what happened, or she would have gone to some authority or said something about it years ago.”

Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from The Citadel and a Republican state representative from Daniel Island, South Carolina, said she had been sexually assaulted as a teen herself. She expressed sympathy for Ford but said Kavanaugh deserves protection, too.

“I’m very empathetic to women who’ve been through this type of situation,” said Mace, 40. “But on the other side, we have laws in this country that protect individuals from being wrongfully accused.”

Emma Scott, an 18-year-old University of South Carolina freshman from Charleston, South Carolina, said that while she doesn’t doubt that Ford endured a trauma of some kind, she wasn’t convinced it could be tied to Kavanaugh.

Mace said that she viewed the testimony as an “at all costs” effort by Democrats to win back control in Congress and possibly hold the seat open until a future Democratic president can fill it.

“Ford is political collateral, and they do not care,” Mace said.

Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who gave a fiery defense of Kavanaugh after the judge’s testimony Thursday, said Graham’s office has received as many women calling in support of Kavanaugh as in opposition.

Patrick Semansky The Assocaited Press Supporters of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh gather in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday.