The prospect of a bruising confrontation over a Supreme Court nomination has raised the stakes in the 2016 presidential election. But while both parties seem to relish the idea of making November a referendum on the future ideological makeup of the court, Democrats are claiming that it also may help them win back the U.S. Senate. Their assumption is that voters, especially in swing states with competitive Senate races, will be so disgusted by the spectacle of Republicans refusing to consider an Obama nominee that any incumbent facing a strong opponent that goes along with this tactic will be punished by the voters. With the Democrats needing five seats to win back the upper body (or only four if a Democrat is elected president), they think something that will allow them to resurrect the 2013 government shutdown is exactly what they needed to both mobilize their base and to win the political center.

But there are three problems with this assumption. One is that it overestimates the Democrats’ chances of winning those four or five seats. The second is that it underestimates the intelligence of the voting public and their ability to understand the significance of the Court battle. The third is that ignores the fact that having strong a strong candidate will, barring a presidential landslide in the mode of 1964 or 1972, always outweigh the impact of a national issue.

Democrats have pointed to 2016 as an opportunity to win back the Senate because, for the first time in years, the Republicans are the ones defending the most seats. The GOP has 24 incumbents up for re-election while the Democrats have only ten. That’s especially important because, in 2010, the GOP flipped six Senate seats in states that were won by Barack Obama in 2008. But Democratic optimism about the Senate has waned in the last year because this seeming Republican vulnerability has not panned out.

While two GOP senators elected that year seem likely to be 2016 casualties — Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson and Illinois’ Mark Kirk — Democratic prospects elsewhere are not that good. Republicans that Democrats were sure they could beat such as Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey and Ohio’s Rob Portman have solid leads in the polls over prospective challengers. In both cases, the failure of the Democrats to come up with strong candidates seems to be as big a problem as the popularity of Toomey and Portman, both of whom have gained popularity during their terms rather than losing support.

The only GOP seats that seem in real danger at the moment are in Florida, where Marco Rubio’s decision not to run for re-election has created an open and, as yet, undefined race, and in New Hampshire where Kelly Ayotte faces a tough challenge from Governor Maggie Hassan.

But unfortunately for Democrats, the third Senate race that is rated a tossup is one they are defending: the Nevada seat being vacated by Minority Leader Harry Reid. That’s a seat most Republicans still think they should have won in 2010 had not Tea Partiers foisted an extreme candidate on the GOP thus saving the unpopular Reid. But with Reid off the ballot the Democrats should have a fighting chance of holding it.

That means, as election guru Larry Sabato notes on his Crystal Ball website, this leaves the GOP heading into November with 50 seats likely in their pockets while Democrats have 47. That gives them a fighting chance but given the likely strength of the GOP candidates in the tossups, the Democrats chances of getting to 50 or 51 are not that good.

But Democrats are hoping the SCOTUS fight changes those odds. That is a possibility, but it rests on shaky ground.

The voters aren’t stupid. While partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans will believe the talking points each side puts forward in this battle, those who have drunk the party Kool-Aid understand this a struggle in which where you stand depends on where you sit. They know the court is up for grabs in a way it has never been before. And they know that if the positions were reversed — such as would have been the case if a liberal justice had died in February 2008 when there was a Republican president and a Senate controlled by the Democrats — the two parties would have taken the opposite of the position they hold now.

The hypocrisy of the Democrats’ pious sermons about a duty to consider and confirm a presidential nominee is given the lie by some of their own statements back then (such as this one by Chuck Schumer) is so great that its going to be hard even for a liberal media to sell this debate as one being fought on principle rather than partisan grounds. While there’s an argument to be made for going through the motions of considering anyone nominated by the president, the time and energy wasted on it by Democrats will be comparable to the numerous attempts by Republicans to repeal ObamaCare. Liberals may be outraged by the GOP refusal to confirm a nominee that will ensure their control of the Supreme Court, but everyone else will understand that this is an issue that will be decided at the ballot box, as it should be.

The final incorrect assumption here is that the Democrats can win back the Senate by nationalizing all Senate races that are normally decided by local factors. We can’t exclude the possibility that will happen if either party nominates a sure loser who will drag down the rest of their party with them. Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders might do that, but then again this is an unusual year, so such predictions are at best uncertain. Democrats may benefit if they can turn out their voters the way Barack Obama was able to do in 2008 and 2012. But the idea that outrage over the failure of Republican senators to vote another liberal onto the court will sink incumbents seems unsubstantiated. Even the disastrous 2013 shutdown didn’t wind up costing Republicans at the polls the next year. By itself, this latest example of partisan gridlock doesn’t seem to have the kind of potential for transforming any of the tossups or close races.

The main factor in each Senate race will be the strength or weakness of the particular candidates. Without a strong Democratic challenger, competent GOP senators will hold onto their seats even if a presidential year turns out more Democrats. If the Democrats are going to come from behind and take the Senate to will require their nominees to do better than expected and for Republicans to self-destruct the way Todd Akin did in 2012. Nothing that happens in the fight over the court is likely to match those factors. So while Democrats may think Antonin Scalia’s death will hand them the Senate, there is little reason to believe this is anything more than partisan hype.