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Article snippet: Sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have delivered a September surprise for Senate and House candidates less than 50 days before the midterms. That is particularly the case with Republicans, who may be forced to balance intense party pressure to send another conservative to the country's top court, without alienating the suburban women voters expected to be pivotal in this year's midterms. Centrist Democrats defending seats in states won by MORE in 2016 must also tread carefully, however, as the allegations enveloping Kavanaugh threaten to turn into a political firestorm. The Kavanaugh allegations dropped like a bomb on Sunday after Christine Blasey Ford, a college professor, came forward publicly for the first time, accusing the Supreme Court nominee of assaulting her at a party in the 1980s when both were high school students, though Kavanaugh has strongly denied it. That claim, coming in a year where the "#MeToo" movement has placed the issue of sexual misconduct front and center, landed in the midst of Kavanaugh's nomination. Kavanaugh and Ford are both expected to testify in public next Monday, effectively postponing a vote by the Judiciary Committee scheduled for Thursday. On top of how candidates navigate the nomination process, scrutiny on how they end up voting on Kavanaugh will likely be intense, at a time when Republicans have already seen support slip among suburban women — many of whom have traditionally voted wi... Link to the full article to read more