Given the circumstances, what are the odds that RBG's seat is filled before January 20?

[Wakie77]

100%. She is the legitimate nominee of the legitimate majority.

LOL … legitimate majority.  Trump did not in fact get a majority of the votes in 2016 he just got enough in the right locations.  The electoral college, 2 Senators per state, thing is a decent idea that is terribly executed.  Sure, give each state 2 Senators … but how is a state defined?  It isn't by population or by geographic size or by diversity of population.  It is just where someone said "yep this feels like where a state line belongs" at the time it became a state.  The only reason there is a North & South Dakota is because in 1880 there was a feeling that North Dakota was a very disreputable area filled with wild folks like cattle ranchers & fur traders.  Weirdly enough the population of areas change over time and now the only way to tell the difference between someone from the Dakota's is by looking at their license plates.  There is dramatically more diversity in the 39 million people in California than the 1.4 million people in the Dakotas.

But we have to stick to the old "well that's how the lines were drawn in the 19th century" logic.  Kinda strange that we don't feel that way when it comes to redistricting within states.

Yes, that is in fact how our Constitution works.

True.  Our and under this system Hispanics get 55% as much representation as White People and African Americans 75% as much.  But hey …. nothing wrong with that system, right?  Everything done by a bunch of rich old guys 250 years ago is perfect.

Don't worry … statehood for Puerto Rico is coming so that will be 2 new blue Senators.  And if that isn't enough we can always split up North & South California.  Or make each of the Hawaiian Islands its own state.  Because that is just how the Constitution works.

And we can split up Missouri and Kentucky and Tennessee. Tit for tat.

And so on and so forth.  We can keep going and going and going and prove what a disaster the system is under its current format.

[Figueira]

Here are each senators odds according to my model assuming they show up:

Ah yes, Portman, the man who made a big deal out of supporting same-sex marriage and then wrote in Mike Pence for President in 2016.

[Calthrina950]

It's a virtual certainty. McConnell has made clear that he's not going to allow anything-even the virus-to stop him from filling that seat, and he's allowing the Judiciary Committee's hearings to proceed on schedule, even though the Senate as a whole will not be meeting for the next few weeks. And if Republicans can't get it done by Election Day, then they will push the nomination through during the lame-duck period. They know that Barrett will be on the Court long after Trump is gone, and could very well cement a conservative majority that lasts to the middle of this century.

[For Trump, everything. For immigrants, the law]

100%. Republicans will go to hell and back to make the SC an extension of their party.

[Orser67]

I'd say about 85%; the spread of coronavirus in the Republican caucus makes this a real ballgame again. I think there's a real possibility that:

1)ACB doesn't get confirmed before election day,
2)Democrats win a massive landslide, and
3)One* or more Senate Republicans joins Murkowski and Collins in voting against ACB.

*In this scenario, I'm assuming Kelly wins and takes office at the start of the lame duck session.

Another possibility that can't be ruled out at this point is simply that some Republican senators die from coronavirus.

[Skill and Chance]

Another possibility is that if the timeline gets too tight, infected/exposed GOP senators in states with GOP governors (or strict same party appointment laws like in NC) could be pressured to resign their seats immediately so that healthy Republican appointees could then appear in person to confirm ACB.  IDK how many would be willing to actually do that, though?

So far, Johnson is the only one they couldn't get a GOP replacement for, though I wonder if NC law requires Cooper to make the GOP appointment quickly.

Edit: It looks like Cooper would have 30 days to make the appointment, which means he could wait until after the election, so Tillis preemptively resigning is probably not an option.  This option still works for Lee, Grassley, and Ernst though.