Because of COVID, Barrett suddenly might not have the votes

Republicans have a 53–47 majority in the Senate, but two of their members, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have said they oppose holding a vote to confirm a Supreme Court justice before the election. The Senate isn’t expected to hold a final vote until the end of the month, but were Lee, Tillis, and Johnson to be absent, Republicans wouldn’t have a majority to approve her without the support of Collins and Murkowski. (All 47 Democrats are likely to vote no, in part out of anger that McConnell plans to jam a nominee through after he refused to hold a vote on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland in 2016.)…

The crucial step for Republicans is likely not the hearings but the committee vote, which requires senators to be physically present to achieve a quorum, according to Sarah Binder, an expert on congressional procedure at the Brookings Institution. If Lee and Tillis weren’t there, Democrats could boycott the hearing and block the vote. But Graham and McConnell could delay a committee vote until a few days before the full Senate vote at the end of the month, buying Lee and Tillis more time to recover. McConnell could try other options, such as replacing Lee and Tillis on the Judiciary Committee, or bypassing the panel entirely, but each of those would require majority votes on the Senate floor that he might struggle to win.