Kavanaugh was asked in an extraordinary Senate Judiciary Committee hearing following allegations by professor Christine Blasey Ford that he tried to rape her at a 1982 party when they were high school students.

The controversy over sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spilled into governor's races across the country as the woman at the center of the claims told her story to a riveted nation.

This week the interest in her decision reached a fever pitch following the gripping hearing with Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who accused him of sexually assaulting in the 1980s.

In another statement, Patrick J. Smyth, identified by Ford as being among those downstairs at the party, says "I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh'".

Democrats have been particularly focused on getting more information from Mark Judge, a high school friend of Kavanaugh who Ford said was also in the room during her alleged assault.

"For 12 years, everyone who has appeared before me on the D.C. Circuit has praised my judicial temperament", Kavanaugh said Thursday.

Trump nominated Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been a swing vote on a court now divided between four conservative and four liberal justices.

The American Bar Association urged the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate to delay the vote until the Federal Bureau of Investigation could do a full background check on the assault claims - something President Donald Trump has refused to order.

"As a recovering alcoholic and a cancer survivor, I have struggled with depression and anxiety", his letter said.

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The 53-year-old Kavanaugh came out with defensive guns blazing on Thursday, insisting the assault never happened, accusing Democrats of destroying his reputation and condemning his confirmation battle as a "national disgrace". Later, an emotional and emphatic Kavanaugh denied it.

"I expected it to be a day where we had nothing but losers", Wallace said.

Kavanaugh is a former top aide in Bush's administration. The boys' laughter was "indelible in the hippocampus", she said, using her scientific expertise to describe how memories are stored in the brain and adding, "It's locked in there".

Kavanaugh said he did not watch Blasey Ford's testimony but he categorically denied her allegations.

Amid a meeting with Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, President Trump said he didn't know enough about the request from Flake for a one-week delay but said he would be "totally reliant on whatever" Grassley and other Republican leaders decide to do. "It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me", she said. It also means that any cases the Supreme Court hears before a ninth justice is in place will be decided by just eight, raising the possibility of tie votes.

Similarly, ABC's Dan Abrams said Ford's testimony was an "unmitigated disaster" for Republicans, CNN's Wolf Blitzer suggested people were crying at home, and NBC's Savannah Guthrie said Ford's description of Kavanaugh and a friend of his laughing uproariously during the alleged attack is a moment that will resonate with many Americans. Ford had a lucky escape on that occasion.

He lashed out over the time it took the committee to convene the hearing after Ford's allegations emerged, singling out the Democrats for "unleashing" forces against him. A Democratic senator on this committee publicly referred to me as evil.

Still, most GOP senators were likely to stick with Mr Kavanaugh, especially without corroborating evidence from Ms Ford to back up her story. "I intend to vote for you and I hope everybody who is fair-minded will", he told Kavanaugh.

As to whether he had a message for undecided senators like Collins and Murkowski, Trump said "they have to do what they think is right" and be comfortable with themselves.