The old norms governing Supreme Court nominations generally meant that a well-qualified jurist from within that party’s mainstream would command overwhelming approval from senators in both parties. But that expectation relied on the shared belief that judges were ideologically unpredictable. (Because, indeed, they were.)

In the new world, confirming a Supreme Court justice is just like passing any other part of the president’s agenda: You either have a majority of the votes in Congress or you don’t get it. It will now become routine for Supreme Court seats to stay vacant for years until one party controls the presidency and the Senate.

In practical terms, this will make it nearly impossible for Democrats to take back the Court in the near future. As Simon Bazelon argues, the median Electoral College state is now roughly four percentage points more Republican than the country, and the median Senate seat is about three percentage points more Republican than the country. Democrats have managed to eke out 50 seats by coasting on previous wins in red states, but the advantage to incumbency is shrinking, while the correlation between how a state votes in presidential elections and how it votes in Senate elections is rising. Bazelon forecasts that Republicans will probably hold somewhere between 56 and 62 Senate seats after the 2024 elections.