By all accounts, North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is the most endangered Democrat in the Senate, down by nearly 9 points in a state Trump won by 36 in 2016. Meanwhile, her male Democratic counterpart in West Virginia, Sen. Joe Manchin, enjoys a greater than 9-point lead over his GOP opponent in a state Trump carried by 42 points. But the way the two red-state Democrats handled their votes on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh provided a stark contrast in expediency versus cowardice.
On Capitol Hill, Manchin was nowhere to be seen after he cast a critical "yes" vote Friday morning to advance Kavanaugh's nomination. How he planned to vote during Saturday’s floor vote was left a mystery. Heitkamp, by comparison, had explained her intention to vote “no” quite fully. She rooted her objection to Kavanaugh first and foremost in his conspiracy-laden partisan rant last week, saying it “called into question Judge Kavanaugh’s current temperament, honesty, and impartiality." But she also said her time as North Dakota’s Attorney General working with sexual assault survivors influenced her heavily.
“I can’t get up in the morning and look at the life experience that I’ve had and say ‘Yes’ to Judge Kavanaugh," she told WDAY, a local North Dakota television station, on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the decisions of two key Republican Senators also unfolded quite differently on Friday. Sen. Jeff Flake—who just last week called for further FBI review of Kavanaugh after fretting that the country was "coming apart"—settled into the comfort of his "Yea" vote on a self-congratulatory note.
"I'm glad we had a better process, we needed a better process" Flake said, telling reporters he would vote to confirm Kavanaugh Saturday "unless something big changed." The Arizona senator, who's not running for reelection but perhaps dreams of a political comeback one day, looked positively relieved as he stepped into a car to drive away. "We did our best," he offered, after Republicans delivered a supplemental FBI report at his behest that willfully ignored some 40 witnesses.
His Republican colleague from Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, wasn’t near as sanguine.
“None of this has been fair," she said in explaining what she called "the most difficult evaluation of a decision that I have ever had to make" as a Senator.
In a spontaneous interview with reporters following her “no” vote on Kavanaugh, Murkowski said the judge hadn’t been treated well, but added, "I also recognize that we need to have institutions that are viewed as fair and if people who are victims, people who feel that there is no fairness in our system of government, particularly in our courts, then you’ve gone down a path that is not good and right for this country. "
Ultimately, Murkowski said her decision against Kavanaugh turned on something bigger than this one political moment.
"We’re dealing with issues right now that are bigger than a nominee," she explained, "and how we ensure fairness and how our legislative and judicial branch can continue to be respected."
Finally, around 3:00 p.m., GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine stepped on to the Senate floor to serve as a human shield for the party of men. She cast Kavanaugh as a moderate jurist and, perhaps most importantly and disingenuously, tried to have it both ways on the veracity of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault claim against him.
“I found her testimony to be sincere, painful and compelling,” Collins said. “I believe that she is a survivor of a sexual assault and that this trauma has upended her life. Nevertheless, the four witnesses she named could not corroborate any of the events.” At the end of the day, Collins, flanked in the TV frame by two other female Republican senators, used the rigged FBI inquiry to declare Blasey Ford believable in one breath but mistaken in the next. It was just the cover Flake needed to feel dandy about himself and Manchin needed to cave.
Minutes after Collins completed her 50-minute closing argument, Manchin released a statement confirming that he planned to join Republicans in casting a final vote in favor of Kavanaugh on Saturday.