The Democrats’ success in retaining control of the Senate — and potentially augmenting their advantage in the upper chamber should Senator Warnock defeat Herschel Walker — gives President Biden a runway to recast the judiciary. 

Even before the race in Nevada was called for Senator Cortez Mastro, Mr. Biden had acted with alacrity in stocking the federal bench, his appointment velocity matching the speedy pace attained by his predecessor. Both appointed 84 judges by the same point in their tenure.  

In addition to those 84 judges, 57 judicial nominees are pending and 119 announced vacancies awaiting filling. Mr. Biden has announced nominees for about half — 56 — of those vacancies. Sixteen of those vacancies are on appellate courts, slots for which the president has announced 12 nominees.  

Mr. Biden got off to a fast start. Pew reported in August that he had “appointed more judges to the federal courts at this stage in his tenure than any president since John F. Kennedy.” Many of those have been women and racial minorities.  

The “former guy,” as Mr. Biden likes to call President Trump, was no slouch in this regard. During his four years in office, Mr. Trump saw 234 judges confirmed, including three justices of the Supreme Court; Neal Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Mr. Biden has placed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on the high court bench. 

If Mr. Warnock wins, appointing judges will become even easier for Mr. Biden. In a chamber deadlocked 50 to 50 with ties only broken by Vice President Harris, Republicans could throw up roadblocks to confirmations. At 51 to 49, the path from the White House to the Senate Judiciary Committee to a full vote of the Senate would be clear. 

For any president, the great prize is the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice. A correspondent at Vox, Dylan Matthews, tweeted that if the Democrats held the Senate, as has come to pass, it would be a “good time” for Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to retire. The former is 62, the latter is 68. 

Such calls for justices to retire are far from infrequent. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg resisted such pressure during President Obama’s two terms, only to succumb to age and infirmity during Mr. Trump’s tenure. Justice Coney Barrett now occupies her seat.

Justice Stephen Breyer likewise faced pressure from liberal groups to cede his seat to someone younger. At 83, he was the court’s oldest justice. The Washington Post described the campaign to shunt him aside as “extraordinary,” and it included a truck that drove around the court with a billboard reading, “Breyer, retire.”

No such similar pressure has yet been exerted on Justices Kagan and Sotomayor. However, a repeat of the Democrats’ unexpected triumph in the 2022 midterms is by no means guaranteed in 2024, and the high court’s already beleaguered left flank can hardly afford attrition.