A little confession from your Hot Seats decider: Sometimes the No. 1 ranking on this list is just total guesswork. I know. I know. It’s all an illusion, etc. But this week’s No. 1 is a True No. 1. That’s because North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate, appears to be toast. A survey released on Monday showed her down by 10 percentage points to GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer, 51 percent to 41 percent, and another poll that came out Wednesday found her down 12 points, 53 percent to 41 percent. These are much worse numbers than Heitkamp had been seeing, and this is the starkest example yet of the effect Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation has had in polarizing the electorate and awakening Republican voters. In a red state like North Dakota, that’s bad news for any Democrat. And if North Dakota is a lost cause for Democrats, that means that in order for Democrats to take control of the Senate, every other Democratic incumbent in a competitive race—in Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia, Montana, and Florida, namely—would need to win, and Democratic challengers would need to pick up seats in Arizona, Nevada, and either Tennessee or Texas. This would have been a tall order prior to Kavanaugh. It’s a Hail Mary now.