Inside Trump’s strategy to remodel the Supreme Court

The thinking inside the transition, according to multiple people involved in the internal deliberations, is that Scalia’s replacement offers Trump and the conservative movement the best chance for an unabashedly rock-ribbed replacement because it would not fundamentally shift the court’s balance of power.

“You’re basically dealing with a situation where no matter what conservative you put on the court you’re establishing the same parity that existed,” said a transition official involved in the selection process. “That is first and foremost in everybody’s minds.”

But in the current search process, Trump’s team is also hoping to identify a conservative candidate — possibly a woman — who could be more politically palatable, or at least harder for Senate Democrats to oppose, if Kennedy or Ginsburg leave the court.

“To the extent there are ways of slicing and dicing the list, you want to be sensitive to who would be best as your first, forward-looking nominee for the Scalia seat,” said the transition official. “And then who are your better bets for seats that are going to be potentially more contentious.”