The U.S. Senate voted 50-48 Saturday afternoon to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, ending one of the ugliest, most dishonest, and despicable fights ever witnessed on Capitol Hill.

The Senate holdouts voted basically the way we predicted they would. In fact, the final tally shows lawmakers voted the way most of us thought they would back in mid-September, after Kavanaugh was first confirmed and before Democrats embraced the multiple unverified and uncorroborated allegations of sexual misconduct lobbed in his direction.

“We stood up for the presumption of innocence,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters after the vote. “We refused to be intimidated by the mob of people that came after Republican members at their homes and in the halls.”

Republican moderates Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., both voted in the affirmative. When Flake announced his vote, he was heckled by anti-Kavanaugh spectators in the gallery. He and Collins were joined Saturday from across the aisle by a single Democratic lawmaker: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who's up for re-election this November. Like Flake, Manchin received boos and jeers from the Senate gallery upon announcing his vote.

The only holdout not to vote for Kavanaugh was Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who had also voted Friday against moving Kavanaugh’s confirmation forward. On Saturday, she initially cast a “nay” vote, but then withdrew it immediately and changed it to “ present,” as part of an agreement with the absent Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who was attending his daughter’s wedding in Montana.

In short, the final tally Saturday was almost exactly what it would’ve been had the Senate held the vote immediately following Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. The only differences between then and now are that Kavanaugh’s good name has been permanently destroyed, his chief accuser (Christine Blasey Ford) has been outed against her will and threatened, the national media have surrendered their final shreds of credibility, and certain lawmakers and politically active attorneys have revealed themselves to be even more craven, disingenuous, and outright evil than previously suspected.

And there's one more difference: The Democrats’ “ enthusiasm edge” has all but evaporated. Recent surveys also show the Kavanaugh fight has energized Republican voters more than any other issue up to this point. In other words, the Democratic Party’s campaign to destroy Brett Kavanaugh may come back to bite them next month.

On Saturday, McConnell signaled he and other GOP leaders most absolutely plan to cash in on the anti-anti-Kavanaugh backlash.

“We are pretty excited,” McConnell said Saturday in reference to the anti-Kavanaugh campaign. “They managed to deliver the only thing we hadn’t figured out how to do, which is get our side fired up.”

Conservatives are good and angry after witnessing this outrageous attempt by the Democrats and their extremely willing allies in the news media to destroy President Trump’s second nominee to the Supreme Court. You can bet the Republican Party will use that anger as it can to fend off the opposition party’s campaign to take back the House and/or the Senate. Put money on it.