Senate Democrats are signaling they would block any Trump Supreme Court nominee if they retake the chamber in 2026, citing Mitch McConnell’s earlier refusal to fill a vacancy.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put the warning in blunt terms. Asked what a Democratic-controlled Senate would do with a high court vacancy under President Trump, Schumer did not hedge.
NBC News reported his answer from Washington: blocking Trump’s judicial picks is now a core reason Democrats want the chamber back.
"The bottom line is: One of the reasons we want to do everything we can to take back the Senate is not let Trump put such horrible justices, MAGA justices, on the Supreme Court and the lower courts,"
That is not a one-off sound bite. Other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are saying the same thing out loud. The 2026 election would decide control for Trump’s final two years in office. If Democrats win, they would hold the power to decide which nominees even get hearings and votes.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a senior Judiciary member, said the odds of confirming a Trump high court pick under Democratic control are near zero.
"Well, given the history of Trump nominees, I think it is slim to none that we would support a nominee from this administration,"
Blumenthal went further. He cast Trump’s past picks as “a politician in robes who is following Trump’s orders on most major questions.” He also described a litmus test for lower-court nominees: Democrats would stop “totally unqualified, ideologically right-wing nominees who won’t answer the question of who won the 2020 election,” among other questions.
First-term Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona did not bother with soft language. Asked whether Democrats should take a different path, he said no.
"No, we’ve got to do exactly what McConnell did to us,"
Gallego argued that McConnell and Trump used their power to change the courts and that Democrats now need to “start moving it back.” He also warned Republicans against the path they once took, then embraced it as the model.
The history he wants to copy is real. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held a Supreme Court seat open for 10 months at the end of President Barack Obama’s term. Justice Neil Gorsuch ultimately filled that vacancy after Trump took office. McConnell also slowed nearly all judicial nominations to a crawl in Obama’s last two years after Republicans took the Senate, a move he treated as payback after Democrats abolished the 60-vote threshold for lower-court judges in 2013.
Democrats spent years calling that approach an assault on norms. Now several of them are promising to run the same play, and to run it against a president voters already returned to office.
None of the nine justices has signaled plans to leave. Still, the two oldest, Clarence Thomas at 78 and Samuel Alito at 76, sit at the center of the speculation. Sonia Sotomayor is 72. Chief Justice John Roberts is 71.
Alito told CBS News in a recent interview that he thought about retiring earlier this year and chose not to. “It’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term,” he said. He added that it is “too hard to predict what the political situation will be, and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.” Those comments land against a Court already deep in fights over climate liability, as Clarence Thomas looms large in major pending cases.
Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, who took her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Judiciary seat and is running in 2026 for a full term, answered Alito directly on X. She said a Republican-majority Senate would be needed to confirm a Trump nominee if Alito retires next year. If Democrats hold the Senate, she wrote, “they will not even allow a vote. And if they allow a vote, they will defeat a Trump-nominated candidate regardless of their qualifications.”
Alito’s own recent remarks about the personal cost of big cases, including how high-stakes rulings strained old ties, only sharpen why vacancies matter so much to both parties.
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, who sits on Judiciary, said he would not count on any Trump Supreme Court nominee clearing a Democratic Senate. He spoke before Alito’s CBS comments were published.
"I don’t think it would be impossible. You know, there’s a slim possibility, very slim possibility. But there’s a possibility that somebody would confuse me with Brad Pitt. I mean, it’s possible, but it’s not likely."
That is the practical forecast from the other side of the aisle. Trump has already seen nearly 290 federal judges confirmed across his time in office, including three Supreme Court justices in his first term, all while Republicans held the Senate. A Democratic takeover would end that path cold.
Just last month Trump criticized the Court on Truth Social over rulings on mail-in ballots, tariffs, and birthright citizenship, saying the justices had “really let our Country down” and were “merely a shell of their original selves.” The confirmation fight Democrats are previewing would decide whether he gets any further say in who wears those robes.
Josh Orton, president of the progressive group Demand Justice, said his organization is “prepared to oppose any Trump nominee, regardless of when the vacancy happens.” On “moral and political grounds,” he sees “no reason for Democrats to consider a Trump Supreme Court nomination,” arguing that Trump treats the Court as “a political extension of himself.”
Other Democrats were more careful on camera and no less revealing. Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Judiciary member, paused and chuckled when asked if Democrats would confirm a Trump justice. “Well, I don’t know. I can’t speak for my colleagues,” she said, then pivoted to her preferred overhaul: a system that “allows every president to nominate two Supreme Court justices, and then they move on.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, next in line to chair Judiciary if Democrats win, answered the same question with two words: “Don’t know.” Ranking member Dick Durbin of Illinois is retiring after this Congress.
The pattern is clear enough without a formal caucus memo. Schumer frames the midterm as a firewall against Trump judges. Blumenthal puts the confirmation odds at “slim to none” and attaches a 2020 election question as a screen. Gallego wants McConnell’s tactics used in reverse. Outside groups want a total bar. That is the record Democrats are putting on tape while asking voters for the gavel. Related Court fights over enforcement power, including a deportation case framed as two hard choices, show why control of the bench remains a central prize.
Background on Alito’s earlier retirement deliberations is already public, including reporting that he weighed stepping down last term before staying. Immigration cases still heading toward the justices, such as one that could force bond hearings for illegal immigrants in federal custody, keep the same point in view: personnel is policy, and vacancies do not wait for polite consensus.
The Constitution gives the Senate a real role in confirming judges. It does not require senators to pretend every nominee is acceptable. Voters can punish hardball. What they should not accept is the double standard now on display.
Democrats denounced McConnell for holding a seat open and slowing confirmations. They changed the lower-court filibuster rules when it suited them in 2013. They are now promising, in advance of any vacancy and any name, to shut the door on Trump’s choices if they regain the majority, including a Supreme Court seat, and including nominees they admit they would reject “regardless of their qualifications.”
That is not a hidden strategy. Schumer, Blumenthal, Gallego, and allied groups are saying it in interviews and on the record. Republicans on Judiciary are treating it as the expected outcome. The 2026 Senate map will decide whether the threat becomes the operating rule for Trump’s last two years.
When Democrats were out of power, they called this kind of blockade a crisis for the Court. With a path back to the majority in sight, they are selling the blockade as the point of the election, and daring voters not to notice.
