Updated Saturday at 7 p.m. with fresh comments from Cruz and O'Rourke.

WASHINGTON - The brawl over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will likely be on the minds of plenty of Texans when it's time to choose between Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O'Rourke next month.

Cruz has long crusaded for stocking the federal courts with conservatives.

O'Rourke's disdain for Kavanaugh's judicial views were plain enough, as was his sympathy for the women who accused the judge of sexual assault decades ago — though unlike Cruz, he's put far less of a spotlight on the fight. Some analysts say he's missed a chance to galvanize Democrats by taking a relatively measured approach.

Yet both could benefit from the fallout, even though only one side scored a huge victory by securing a lifetime spot on the nation's highest court for a 53-year-old conservative.

"If you're Ted Cruz, a victory lap on the Kavanaugh nomination — there's some risk in it based on how you think women are reacting, but given how important the Supreme Court is to your baseline conservative voter, I wouldn't be surprised," said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas.

Even as he spoke by phone from Austin, Cruz was on the Senate floor denouncing "political games" on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday, after the Senate voted 50-48 along party lines to confirm Kavanaugh, and the new justice was sworn in, O'Rourke expressed his disappointment.

"If I were in the Senate, I would have voted no," he wrote on Medium. "Today's news and the headlines we've seen over the last few weeks have been extremely difficult for many Texans and especially painful for survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment."

But he wrote, "If the government does not represent the will of the people, we will change the makeup of the government. We will ensure that the senators voting on lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court fight for people, for our rights, for our future. That they put country over party."

At the Senate, protesters heckled Cruz on Saturday. "This rage isn't good for our country," he tweeted, calling Democrats' behavior "abominable."

The angry Left responding to Kavanaugh’s confirmation. This rage isn’t good for our country. The Dems’ behavior has been abominable—dragging a good man & his family through the mud—but after a careful and fair process, a great victory for all of us who cherish the Constitution. https://t.co/ICrH4vvJvG — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 6, 2018

On Friday afternoon, Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, cemented the outcome by announcing her support for Kavanaugh, followed by Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat working to keep a seat in a state that overwhelmingly backed Donald Trump for president.

Allegations of sexual assault should be taken seriously, Cruz averred, even in a deeply polarized time. He called it only right to treat Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, "with the utmost respect."

But he said, "We want a fair system. We want a just system. We want a system that recognizes the rule of law. There are many countries that are rule by mob, rule by accusation, rule by insinuation."

Indeed, a small anti-Kavanaugh mob chased Cruz and his wife from an upscale Italian restaurant on Sept. 24, shouting "we believe survivors."

1 / 2Rachel Mitchell, counsel for Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, questions Dr. Christine Blasey Ford about allegations of sexual abuse as part of Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Sept. 27, 2018. Behind her are GOP senators, from left, Ben Sasse, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and John Cornyn.(TOM WILLIAMS / Getty Images) 2 / 2Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso) during a debate with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at McFarlin Auditorium at Southern Methodist University in Dallas on Friday, Sept. 21, 2018.(Nathan Hunsinger / staff)

Whatever annoyance that caused was a minor price compared the one Democrats hope to extract — though in Texas, Cruz is far more likely to benefit from Kavanaugh's confirmation and the tussle that led up to Saturday's vote.

The Fire Ted Cruz PAC — whose goal is pretty much explained by its name — hit the senator Friday for shrugging aside the allegations against the judge.

"He sat in that hearing, listened to Dr. Ford's testimony, and he's STILL voting yes. Disgusting," the PAC, led by Dallas lawyer Marc Stanley, wrote in a fund-raising appeal. "You can make sure he pays for his betrayal of Texas women. You can make sure he pays for his vote with his Senate seat."

But the right has long been more focused on court fights than the left.

"There's something special about conservatives on the court that rallies Republicans," said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist who sees a bigger bump out of this fight for Cruz.

Trump only whet conservatives’ appetite by putting Neil Gorsuch on the high court — an early and unequivocal win that proved for conservatives that whatever his flaws, their support paid off in the long run.

The Senate approved Gorsuch 54-45. The vote for Kavanaugh will be much closer.

A number of polls in recent months showed Democrats heading into the midterms with more enthusiasm, and O'Rourke's surprising surge in Texas reflected that.

But the confirmation fight appears to have revved up Republicans, and may close any enthusiasm gap.

O'Rourke, an El Paso Democrat, hasn't gone out of his way to spotlight judicial nominations as an issue. Unlike some Democratic senators, he never shouted his opposition to Kavanaugh from the mountaintops.

"The events of the past weeks — including Dr. Ford's courageous and powerful testimony — has only added to my concern that Judge Kavanaugh does not meet the bar for Texas to serve on the Supreme Court. We're talking about a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, a court that will rule on voting rights, civil rights, women's rights, workers' rights, and equal rights," the Democrat said earlier this week.

That sort of measured — almost veiled — opposition may avoid riling moderates and Republicans. It may also disappoint some Democrats.

"He's pulled his punches on a couple of issues that if he connected cleanly could be serious political blows to Cruz. This might be the most high profile missed opportunity for O'Rourke," Rottinghaus said. "He's been a proceduralist rather than a pugilist."

On the stump, Cruz routinely reminds voters that picking conservative judges has been a top priority for Trump and Republicans. And he has repeatedly and forcefully accused Democrats of playing partisan games with the Kavanaugh fight.

"It's monumental" to get Kavanaugh on the high court, said Missy Shorey, the Dallas County GOP chairwoman. "There's really no ambiguity when you're looking at Judge Kavanaugh. You understand where he is."

She accused O'Rourke of refusing to look at the allegations against the judge objectively, but took issue with the idea that the fight juiced up Texas Republicans.

"We've been energized," she said. Still, she said, it has reinforced for conservatives how important it is to keep Cruz in the Senate. "People like myself are irate with the left for using Dr. Ford, disrespecting her confidentiality and making this far worse for her than it had to be."

Cruz's support was never in doubt.

He attended the White House rollout of both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and instantly vowed support for each — even though he condemned Democrats for opposing Kavanaugh even before he got a hearing.

He denounced Democrats for mounting a partisan smear campaign. He called for a respectful hearing of Ford and her allegations — and promptly set those aside as uncorroborated. For Cruz, it was actually a somewhat reserved approach.

"We didn't see the fire breathing Cruz on this," said Rottinghaus, "in part because we didn't know how this would end up and they wanted to reserve the possibility to crank up the outrage machine if they needed to."

A Quinnipiac University Poll released two weeks ago — before the Ford testimony — showed a sharp partisan split: 92 percent of Republicans supported confirmation, with 77 percent of Democrats opposed.

Women were about evenly divided, while men supported confirmation nearly 2-1, suggesting that with credible allegations of sexual assault could push some potential swing votes to Democrats if Republicans mishandled the fight.

With a month to go before Election Day, there's time for hard feelings to subside — and for well-crafted ads to stoke anger in both camps.

"Everyone is very emotionally tied to this. This has become a national event. ... There are a lot of very unhappy people on one side or the other," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll. "Predicting this is just not very easy."