President Trump was prescient. He said the midterm elections would be about something, Kavanaugh, and something else. Look to West Virginia and look to Indiana to see how right Trump was.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., won in a state Trump won by 31 points, and Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., lost in a state Trump won by 18 points. So yes, 2018 just became the Kavanaugh election.
The difference in the fate of the two Joes — the last of the moderate Senate Democrats — is that Manchin voted for the Supreme Court nominee and Donnelly voted against. Call it the Beach Week Wave.
Donnelly tried to split the judicial baby, voting for Justice Neil Gorsuch (whose nomination wasn’t in much danger) before voting against Kavanaugh (who was truly imperiled). Manchin told Democratic brass to buzz off, jumped across the aisle, and cast his fate with the president’s nominees. He is the only Democrat to vote to send both of Trump’s nominees to the court. His political life continues as a result.
What’s more, Manchin held on in a state that Trump won by double digits, a state that the Trump family visited more than half a dozen times, a state designed to end the career of Democrats post 2016.
Both senators faced ugly political geographies. The difference is that when Donnelly tried to play games with the allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, when he called for and then rejected the results of an additional FBI investigation, Manchin stayed consistent.
Hunkering down in the middle, Manchin has avoided extinction. He is the last of the Blue Dog Democrats because he recognized that this was the election of Kavanaugh.
