Partly due to circumstance, Fayetteville wound up being the place where President Donald Trump dropped big news at his rally on Saturday at the Fayetteville Regional Airport.

Trump made it clear to thousands of cheering supporters he intended to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. During his speech, he conducted a quick “poll” of the crowd, whose reaction seemed to favor a female nominee.

“It will be a woman,” he said. “A very talented, brilliant woman.”

On Friday, news had broken that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died at age 87. She had been a well-respected champion of progressive ideals from her days as a trailblazing lawyer. Her death set up what is expected to be a huge nomination fight over who will replace her, an event that could shake up the presidential race.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and other Democrats have argued that, with less than 50 days before the election, it is too late to fill the seat and whomever is elected president in November should decide. Democrats say the GOP should hold to its own standard it set when it held up President Obama’s nomination for nine months in the election year of 2016.

Trump wound up making the pick, Justice Neil Gorsuch, in 2017. If the president fills the former Ginsburg seat, it will be his third Supreme Court pick.

Both Trump and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have indicated they will move quickly to fill the seat. On Saturday, in Fayetteville, Trump supporters showed where their hearts lay with chants of “Fill that seat! Fill that seat!” The campaign is selling shirts with that slogan.

It is all an early indicator of how much the Supreme Court could matter — especially if Trump replaces Ginsburg with a staunch conservative, giving GOP appointees a 6-3 edge that could affect legal precedents from abortion to the Affordable Care Act.

Trump has said he would announce a nominee later in the week. Among names being floated are Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite of religious conservatives, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Chicago’s 7th Circuit; and Barbara Lagoa, an appeals court judge for Atlanta’s 11th Circuit who is Hispanic and from Florida, and might help with that crucial state.

Trump did not just break news in Fayetteville but also showed, in his own unique way, how important North Carolina is when it comes to his reelection prospects.

At one point in the speech he turned to Michael Whatley, chairman of the N.C. Republican Party: “How are we doing, Michael? How’s it going? Are we up? I mean, if I lose North Carolina, I’m getting out of here.”

Then, looking out over the crowd of between 4,000 and 6,000 in the private airplane hangar, the president concluded this size crowd would not show up for someone who is “coming in second.”

We can find no reasonable scenario where Trump can win the Electoral College without again winning North Carolina’s 15 Electoral Votes. That explains why he has visited the state four times this cycle.

North Carolina also has one of the key Senate races that will decide which party controls the chamber next year. It pits Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who attended Saturday’s rally, against Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham.

Given our state’s battleground status, Fayetteville, North Carolina, was in the end a great place to break big news related to an election-shaking Supreme Court fight.