Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would likely represent a reliably conservative voice and vote on the high court, tipping its balance significantly to the right for years to come. Gone are the days of the equally sized liberal and conservative blocs with Kennedy in between. With Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the country would enter the age of the solid, 5-4 conservative majority…

According to one prominent measure of judicial ideology, called Judicial Common Space scores, Kavanaugh would fall to the right of Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito, and just to the left of the arch conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. That score is based not on Kavanaugh’s rulings but rather on an appeal to the nomination process. Typically, this relies on the ideology of a judge’s home-state senator, but because Kavanaugh served on the D.C. circuit, his ideology score is drawn from that of the relevant president, George W. Bush. If JCS is accurate, Chief Justice John Roberts will become both the chief and the court’s new median justice. Roberts has been the pivotal vote in liberal-leaning decisions only five times during his tenure.