The big lie/smear worked against Roy Moore. Of course in Roy’s case top swamp Republicans were in on the libel.
Slightly different as it’s politicians making the call on Kavanaugh as opposed to millions of voters.
And it was borderline creepy to a lot of people.
Roy Moore's political career ended when Sean Hannity asked him to state unequivocally that as a grown man, he was not courting underage high school girls. Moore could not do this.
At that point he lost Hannity and 650,000 Trump-voting Alabamans chose to stay home, certain that Moore would still win without their votes.