How many Supreme Court justices will the President confirm?

The core question is not whether the Court will have any openings, but whether the timing and politics line up for two openings within a single presidential term. There is a meaningful amount of vacancy risk over a four-year window because several justices are in their 70s, and even one retirement plus one unexpected death or resignation would get to two confirmations quickly. At the same time, Supreme Court turnover is lumpy, and many terms end up with zero or one confirmation simply because justices can and do stay on the bench longer than expected.

Historically, two confirmations in one term is plausible but not the modal outcome. It usually requires either a very favorable retirement cycle or a crisis-driven vacancy, and those are hard to forecast. The market’s emphasis on 0 and 1 as the main alternatives makes sense, but it may understate the nontrivial chance that aging justices create a second opening, especially over a term that still has several years remaining.

Compared with the current market price of 36% on Yes, my estimate is a bit lower but broadly aligned. I would not call this a major mispricing; instead, the market seems to be pricing the distribution fairly efficiently, with some recognition of both the age-related vacancy upside and the large amount of uncertainty around justices’ retirement behavior. My view is that exactly two confirmations is slightly less likely than the market implies, but not enough to warrant a strong contrarian position.