https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-e10ee0a7-491a-4004-8bd8-c3526f630795.html

1 big thing: Dems plot massive campaign if Kavanaugh falls

If Brett Kavanaugh's nomination sinks, Democrats would turn the midterms into a referendum not just on President Trump but also women’s rights, abortion and the future of the Supreme Court, sources tell Axios CEO Jim VandeHei and me.

In what Republicans believe is an increasingly unlikely scenario where Kavanaugh tanks ...

Dems believe they can juice turnout — already hitting record levels — by playing off the huge public attention to the court, and Roe v. Wade in particular.

They envision President Obama and Michelle Obama locking arms with the Clintons, the Bidens, and Democratic congressional leaders to crank up a presidential-election-sized campaign.

They feel confident every rich liberal in America would help fund this effort.

If Democrats downed Kavanaugh, the White House would be inclined to nominate someone at least as conservative, or even more vocally so — perhaps Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Chicago, a Catholic conservative.

Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive court group Demand Justice, said such a choice "would simultaneously electrify evangelicals on their side, and animate progressives on our side."

"There wasn’t anybody else on the short list who has more pronounced positions against abortion and Obamacare," Fallon said. "It wouldn’t take a lot to explain the urgent threat to progressives."

Be smart: Matt Miller, a former aide to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, told me that a court opening during the stretch run of midterms would "convince Democrats all around the country, many of whom have been afraid that nothing matters anymore, that some things still do matter."