Now that his accuser spoke out, is Brett Kavanaugh's nomination in danger?

Is Brett M. Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination in danger now that a woman has publicly accused him of sexually assaulting her when the two were at a high school party decades ago? Maybe.

That's not something we were willing to say at the end of last week. Then, the allegations were anonymous, taking shape in a mysterious letter that a top Senate Democrat referred to the FBI, and then in outlines of reporting in the New Yorker that Kavanaugh forced himself on a woman when he was in high school.

That changed on Sunday, when Christine Blasey Ford came forward as the accuser.

As far as tracing decades-old sexual harassment allegations go, Ford's story is remarkably credible. Ford is speaking on the record about her experience. She passed a polygraph test, the results of which The Washington Post reviewed. She told other people about the alleged attack years before Kavanaugh was a Supreme Court nominee. She allowed her records from a therapy session about it to be reviewed by The Post. She says she didn't want to come forward and decided to do so only after her story was leaked to news outlets.

During his conformation hearings earlier this month, Kavanaugh denied under oath that he had ever committed sexual harassment. He also denied the assault allegations through a statement from the White House before Ford put her name to them. (He has not commented now that Ford has gone public.)

For Kavanaugh, there are a few reasons this allegation could be particularly damaging. From the moment he became President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, he sought to present himself as a champion of women.

He introduced himself to the nation by talking about his mother, a teacher-turned-prosecutor-turned judge. His daughters were by his side. In his confirmation hearing, he and others talked at length about how he elevates women as law clerks. After the allegations came last week, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee shared a letter from 65 women who said they knew Kavanaugh during high school and defended his character.

This is happening at a moment when the nation is perhaps the most sensitive it has ever been to such allegations, and society is taking them more seriously. Nine members of Congress have lost their jobs over sex-related scandals in the past year. It feels like a long way from 1991, when Anita Hill went through the wringer for testifying that Clarence Thomas, now a Supreme Court justice, had sexually harassed her.

So Kavanaugh's nomination could be in trouble, even with a Republican Senate that badly wants to put him on the court quickly. But the dam isn't breaking yet.

Republicans control a majority in the Senate and thus can approve his nomination with a majority of votes.

The longer this nomination is held up, the longer the allegations could simmer, and the more trouble Kavanaugh could be in.