POLICE on Saturday began arresting protesters who had gathered just metres from the entrance to the United States Capitol building, despite a barricade blocking off the area, as legislators inside prepared to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The group of about 150 who somehow got around the newly-erected barricade were among about 2,000 protesters — most of them women — outside the building where senators were to vote midafternoon.

They were expected to appoint the conservative judge to the court after a nomination process which bared partisan divisions ahead of US midterm elections next month.

The months-long battle over the nomination of Kavanaugh, who has weathered accusations of sexual assault, has roiled Americans’ passions — and placed Mr Trump at the threshold of one of the biggest victories of his presidency.

The Senate vote, set to begin at about 3:30pm (1930 GMT), will bring an end to a raucous nomination process defined by harrowing testimony from a woman who says Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her when they were teenagers — and by his fiery rebuttal.

An AFP reporter saw more than 60 protesters handcuffed by US Capitol Police, after officers issued a warning and led them down the Capitol steps as the demonstrators raised clenched fists.

“Vote them out!” the protesters chanted, along with: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Kavanaugh has got to go.”

With just hours before the vote, more than 1,000 protesters, mostly women, broke through barricades and staged a raucous sit-in protest on the US Capitol steps, just feet away from the imposing doors to the Rotunda as protesters chanted “Shame!”

If Kavanaugh is confirmed, Mr Trump will have succeeded in having his two picks seated on the court — tilting it decidedly to the right in a major coup for the Republican leader less than halfway through his term.

In a sense it would reflect a high water mark of the Trump presidency: Republican control of the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the judiciary’s top court.

But the Kavanaugh spectacle, fuelled by extraordinary accusations and counterclaims in nationally televised hearings, and tense battles over an 11th-hour FBI investigation to address the assault allegations, has inflamed political passions.

Protesters laid out banners several feet long on the east steps of the Capitol, which faces the Supreme Court building.

“November is coming,” said one of their banners.