On Friday morning, Senator Lisa Murkowski, having given little public indication of her position, stood up in the Senate and voted against advancing Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. On Friday afternoon, after making it known that she would reveal her decision in a speech at 3 P.M., Senator Susan Collins spoke for the better part of an hour before arriving at the point: “I will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.”

Together, these two relatively centrist Republicans controlled the fate of Kavanaugh’s nomination—which had looked assured until a few weeks ago, when several women came forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. (Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.) How did these two lawmakers, who have at times been treated as a pair on high-stakes votes, reach contrary ends? After her vote, Murkowski spoke briefly with reporters, and said that she hadn’t made up her mind until she walked onto the floor of the Senate chamber to vote. “I have been wrestling to really try to know what is fair and what is right, and the truth is that none of this has been fair,” she said. “I have been wrestling with whether or not this was about qualifications of a good man, or is this bigger than the nomination. And I believe we’re dealing with issues right now that are bigger than the nominee.”

Collins, in her prepared remarks on the Senate floor, also talked about fairness, but arrived at a different conclusion. “I understand both viewpoints,” she said, of the debate over whether the allegations against Kavanaugh disqualified him from the Court. “But certain fundamental legal principles, about due process, the presumption of innocence, and fairness, do bear on my thinking, and I cannot abandon them.” She spoke at length about Kavanaugh’s judicial record—breaking down the arguments made about his positions on abortion, executive power, and same-sex marriage. She expressed her displeasure with how the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee had handled the sexual-misconduct allegations. And she lingered on gaps in Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, which Ford herself said she wished she could fill in. Collins was animated, and adamant, that voting for Kavanaugh was not condoning sexual assault. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said. “We must listen to survivors, and every day we must seek to stop the criminal behavior that has hurt so many.”

In this case, though, Collins chose not to listen to a survivor—or, more exactly, she found reasons not to listen. Murkowski felt differently. After her vote on Friday morning, she told reporters that she was on her way back to her office to work on a floor statement about her decision. Last month, a reporter asked Murkowski if she had ever had a #MeToo moment. Murkowski answered yes, but did not elaborate.