The judge that President Barack Obama unsuccessfully tried to put on the Supreme Court in 2016 and the judge President Donald Trump selected Monday sit on the same federal appeals court — and their divergent rulings in recent cases echo the Senate’s partisan divide on key policy issues.

The two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — Obama pick Merrick Garland and Trump pick Brett Kavanaugh — went different ways in just the past two years on cases about immigration and abortion, criminal sentencing, police misconduct claims and employee rights.

The cases highlight the political stakes of Supreme Court confirmation fights and their potential spillover into the nation’s social and legal landscape as the Senate begins a battle over Kavanaugh in the months before the midterm elections.

The Senate is just starting to dig through Kavanaugh’s extensive legal and political history in a confirmation process likely to take months. Democrats, still stung from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to hold a confirmation vote for Garland in 2016, have already labeled Kavanaugh “far outside the legal mainstream.”

But a unanimous Supreme Court sided with Kavanaugh’s view in one of those cases, underscoring Trump’s argument Monday that his conventionally conservative pick had a track record of opinions that are ultimately backed up or adopted by the high court.