Battleground-State Democrats Who Vilified Kavanaugh, All Defeated in Midterms

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Senate Democrats in Battleground states who chose to vote against Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, all appear to have paid the price in the midterms by losing their elections.

Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Indiana's Joe Donnelly, and Florida's Bill Nelson all suffered defeat in the elections after backing the campaign to disrupt the SCOTUS nomination process.

Every Democrat incumbent, in fact, who opposed Kavanaugh in states rated a "toss-up" between red and blue by Fox News, lost their race. 

However, the only Democrat who stood by his convictions and voted for Kavanaugh, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, won his election.

"Every Dem Senator in a competitive race who voted against Kavanaugh lost," tweeted Tom Bevan, Co-founder of RealClearPolitics.

The poll by Fox News offered evidence the Kavanaugh issue was a major problem for those battleground incumbent Democrats after voters became energized by the politicization of the Supreme Court nomination.

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A Fox News poll from early October, just before the Kavanaugh confirmation vote, found 34 percent of North Dakotans said they would be less likely to vote for Heitkamp if she voted against Kavanaugh, with just 17 percent saying it would make them more likely to vote for her.

In Missouri, among the 28 percent of voters who said they could still switch candidates, almost twice as many said they'd be less likely to support McCaskill if she opposed Kavanaugh.

In Indiana, a Fox News poll found 32 percent said they would be less likely to vote for Braun if he voted against Kavanaugh, compared to 30 percent who would be more likely.

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Sen. Manchin got grief for his vote for Kavanaugh, and was shouted at by protestors with chants of "shame!" 

One reporter asked him: "Do you think there's still a place for you in the Democratic Party after this?"

Manchin replied by saying, "I'm just a West Virginian."

Manchin also came under fire from his Republican opponent for waiting to announce his vote until after the Republicans had already secured enough votes.

Many speculated that had been the deciding vote, he would have gone against Kavanaugh.

But he survived that charge.

The other incumbents Democrats took a different tack.

Heitkamp told CNN she had been ready to support Kavanaugh until she watched his testimony with the "sound off." 

"I saw somebody who was very angry, who was very nervous," she said.

Donnelly came out with a more full-throated statement. 

“As I have made clear before, sexual assault has no place in our society," he said.

"When it does occur, we should listen to the survivors and work to ensure it never happens again."

Lindsey Graham, who was outspoken in condemning what he saw as unfair treatment of Kavanaugh during the hearings -- he told Senate Democrats "God you all want power.

I hope you never get it -- chimed in on the subject Tuesday night.

"One of the reasons we are winning big in the Senate tonight is because of the way Democrats treated Brett Kavanaugh," he tweeted.