Sri Srinivasan would be a top-contender, I guess. I'm relatively certain it would be a man this time around. If Roberts retired for example, I could also see Biden elevating Sotomayor to Chief Justice and replace her seat with a new appointee.
Hopefully, a Republican Senate will refuse to confirm all Biden nominees.
So a future Democratic senate should also refuse to confirm any of Trump/DeSantis or some other Republicans' nominees?
I think the opposite actually.
1. The optics of appointing a man to a seat formerly held by a woman would be terrible for Biden.
2. If he gets to fill another seat formerly held by a man, it would be the decisive seat to have a majority-female SCOTUS for the first time in history. There would be huge pressure for Biden to do this.
Fair enough, at least should he have to replace Kegan or Sotomayor.
Unfortunately, I doubt Biden will get another appointment in this presidential term. Maybe during the next, which would require the Democrats to keep the senate until at least to the 2026 midterms. Possible? Yes. Likely? No.
The 2024 map is basically impossible. The most plausible scenario where Democrats get to fill more SCOTUS seats without Republicans having a chance to in between would be to win narrowly in 2024 with a new candidate and then that incumbent is reelected in a blowout in 2028, finally flipping the senate back. The 2022-28 map is the most favorable for Dems. The 2024 map is basically impossible.
They could also reasonably flip the Senate back in a GOP midterm in 2026, but that implies 2 years of Republican control of the confirmation process first.
I wouldn't be so sure that the Democrats are doomed in the Senate this year. 2018 showed that the President's party can gain in the Senate even in a midterm that's terrible otherwise if there's something going on in the culture war that especially implicates the Senate and the map is favorable. Add that to the GOP having similar, uh, candidate quality issues this year to the infamous ones from 2010 and 2012, and I think a lot of us will be surprised by how well the Senate Democrats hold up. That "how well" will still likely not translate to actually holding the majority, but I don't think it's out of the realm of reasonable possibility.
Republicans gained seats in the senate for the same reason they won the 2 seats in Minnesota. Partisan gravity . Democrats won almost every seat between Clinton +5/,Trump+5 except for Katko,Bacon,Hurd,Fitzpatrick,diaz balart, and finally somehow Rick Scott because Florida. Democrats effectively need to run the table with multiple Florida's among PA/GA/AZ/NV. If Democrats win the senate the answer is simply no wave happened and the NPV is probably D leaning.
