Now that Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Democrats have been reluctant to accept defeat.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, went on ABC News and made the case that Kavanaugh deserves an asterisk, because he was accused of sexual assault by multiple women and was still confirmed by a majority vote in the Senate — in other words, that he’s somehow illegitimate as a Supreme Court justice.

"He's going to be on the Supreme Court with a huge taint and a big asterisk after his name," Sen. Hirono said. "And the partisanship that he showed was astounding. And the conspiracy theory that he accused us of behaving in was bizarre. But with regard to this sham FBI investigation, everyone knows that when you just interview a small number of people and not the dozens of others who wanted to be interviewed by the FBI, that is a sham. And it raises more questions than it answers."

But Kavanaugh was the victim of a Democratic smear campaign based on a sexual assault allegation that remains completely unsupported. Even after a Senate Judiciary Committee inquiry and a thorough FBI investigation, the seventh background investigation into Kavanaugh's life, they still couldn’t find anything against him. The closest thing to contemporaneous corroboration were Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s therapist’s notes from five and six years ago. And even these didn’t have Kavanaugh’s name in them.

All of the witnesses who were allegedly there at the party where it happened could not corroborate Ford’s claims. Leland Keyser, Ford’s best friend in high school, said she didn’t even know Brett Kavanaugh and had no memory of ever meeting him at any party, let alone a small, intimate gathering like the one Ford described. Ford couldn’t remember what year or month the assault happened, or how she got to the party where the alleged incident took place, and she couldn’t remember how she got home — no small matter in sprawling suburban Montgomery County, Md.

And of course, even then, Ford's completely uncorroborated allegation was still far more credible than any of the allegations that were brought forward in its wake.

Democrats overplayed their hand. They made their minds up on President Trump’s nominee before Kavanaugh was even named in early July. They pulled every dirty political trick in the book, from painting Kavanaugh as someone who was unsympathetic to gun violence victims to accusing his assistant, Zina Bash, of flashing the white power hand sign.

It’s safe to say they ruined the reputation of a highly qualified and respected jurist.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it best, “nothing unites Republicans like a court fight.” Now, Democrats face a united Republican party heading into the 2018 midterm election.

If Democrats fail to take control of the House or Senate, it will be their own fault.