Trump’s conservative imprint on the federal judiciary gives Democrats a playbook

The judicial legacy set by Trump but engineered primarily by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) includes several significant milestones, including the trio on the Supreme Court and the fact that for the first time in 40 years, there were no openings on the circuit courts. That has been a monumental achievement for a majority leader whose mantra has been “leave no vacancy behind” and for a president who simply likes to win.

“I have three Supreme Court justices. I have a great one coming,” Trump said Saturday at a campaign rally in Circleville, Ohio. Inflating the total number of judges confirmed under his tenure, the president added: “Think of that, 300 federal judges, I think close to 60 court of appeals judges and three Supreme Court justices. I mean — can you believe it? Even I can’t believe it!”

Barrett, 48, was confirmed with Republican-only votes Monday night, cementing a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. She will be the 220th federal judge confirmed under the Trump presidency and the McConnell-led Senate — a figure that includes not only her and Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, but also 53 circuit court judges, 162 district court judges and two to the U.S. Court of International Trade.

For the first time in more than four decades, there were no vacancies on the circuit court level, where approximately 30 percent of those sitting on the bench have been nominated by Trump. (That changed Monday with the death of Judge Juan R. Torruella of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan.) Only President Jimmy Carter had more circuit court judges, as well as a larger share of the entire federal appellate bench, confirmed in his first term, and that was before the number of seats in the circuit courts was expanded.

Since 2017, McConnell and Senate Republicans have prioritized filling vacancies on the Supreme Court and the circuit courts, where the vast majority of cases on a litany of matters, including health care, the environment and government regulations, are settled.

“We do a lot of stuff here that is small ball, but this is something that may last 25 or 30 years,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), one of the majority leader’s closest allies. “I give Senator McConnell a lot of credit for keeping us focused on it.”

Few issues have energized and united the Republican base more than the issue of the judiciary, and it has been a decades-long project of the right to steadily fill seats on the federal bench with reliable conservatives. Once viewed skeptically by traditional GOP voters, Trump released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees during his campaign in 2016, a move that reassured conservatives while a seat on the court was vacant.

Still, public polling has started to show a shift in which party cares more about the judiciary. A Pew Research Center poll in August found that 66 percent of registered voters who supported Biden said the matter of Supreme Court appointments was “very important” in considering their vote for president, compared with 61 percent of Trump backers.

That same question in 2016 drew the…