“These hearings kind of turned into something of a staging ground on the issues the parties are hoping to run on,” says J. Miles Coleman, associate editor at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “On the Democratic side, they’re talking about the historic nature of the nomination, basically saying, ‘Stick with us. We’re going to build a government that looks like America,’” Coleman says. “On the Republican side, there’s been this kind of accusation of Brown Jackson being soft on crime,” Coleman says, noting that the issue worked well for George H.W. Bush when he was running for pre...