The Supreme Court was already at issue in the 2018 midterms before Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement. Now it’s going to force a difficult vote.

Democratic senators running for re-election in red states, depicted by their opponents as partisan obstructionists, have worked to shore up their centrist bona fides. You can bet re-election was on the minds of Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., when they bucked their party and became the only three Democrats to vote in favor of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation last year.