The political conditions necessary for Democrats to re-flip the Court are exceptionally daunting. They’d have to hold on to both the White House and the Senate for long enough to get lucky with conservative vacancies. Democrats have a decent chance to maintain control of the Senate in 2022, but the 2024 Senate landscape is horrible for them (three Democratic seats, and all ten Republicans seats up that year were carried by Trump twice). And obviously, a 2024 Democratic presidential win is hardly a safe bet.
Beyond that problem for Democrats, the kind of Supreme Court vacancies we’ve seen since 2016 are significantly less likely. Scalia was 79 when he died; Ginsburg was 87. Kennedy retired at 82, Breyer at 83. The oldest justice today (Clarence Thomas) is 74; Trump’s three justices are under the age of 57, mere tykes by Supreme Court standards.
As time goes by, moreover, the prospect of simply re-establishing Roe and Casey as precedents will fade; progressive justices would almost certainly need to reach agreement on a new foundation for abortion rights, likely centered on equal-protection claims rather than the shaky ground of substantive due process on which Roe and later Casey rested. All this will take time and then preparatory litigation, with conservatives bitterly fighting a rearguard action.
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