Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said he thought about retiring at the end of the last court term and will weigh it again every year, which puts his seat in play one month before voters decide who controls the Senate.
Story Snapshot
- Interview clips released Friday, October 2, show Alito, 76, saying he considered stepping down and chose to stay.
- He said he stayed because he believes he can still make a “valuable contribution.”
- The Senate confirms every Supreme Court justice, and Republicans hold it 53 to 47.
- If Democrats win the Senate on Tuesday, November 3, they could block any justice President Trump names in his last two years.
What Alito Said On The Record
Why it matters now is simple. A president picks a justice, but the Senate must vote to approve, or confirm, that pick. Republicans can confirm a replacement without a single Democratic vote as long as they hold the chamber. The midterms, the national elections held halfway through a president’s term, could end that. So each year Alito stays is a year his seat depends on who runs the Senate.
Alito spoke with Jan Crawford, the chief legal correspondent for CBS News, in a taped interview. Asked about leaving, he said, “I thought about it.” He added, “It’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term.” A term is the court’s yearly session, which opens each October. He said he stayed because “I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place.”
Justice Alito Teases Possible Retirement As Midterms Near @realDailyWire https://t.co/pTIfK78GwE
— Jacob Wheeler (@JWheelertv) October 3, 2026
Crawford asked whether he would weigh the choice again each year. “Yeah, I think I have to,” he said. He set no date and no condition for leaving. He also said he cannot time it around politics: “It’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be, and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.” The full interview airs Monday, October 5.
Why The Seat Matters To Both Parties
Justices serve for life, so one seat can shape the law for decades. Alito was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005 and joined the court in 2006. He wrote the 2022 ruling known as Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade and sent abortion law back to the states. If he left while Republicans hold the Senate, President Trump could name a younger justice with similar views, and that justice could serve for a generation.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who decides what the Senate votes on, signaled in April that his party was ready to confirm a successor. Alito did not step down. In August, President Trump praised his choice to stay and called him “one of the greatest of all time.” If Democrats take the Senate in November, they could refuse to confirm anyone the president sends for the rest of his term, and the seat would stay as it is until Alito leaves or the Senate changes hands again.
How The Process Would Unfold If A Vacancy Opens
If Alito retires, the White House would send a name to the Senate. Senators would hold hearings and then vote. A simple majority is enough. When one party holds both the White House and the Senate, that can move fast. When they are split, the Senate majority can slow it down or stop it.
Justices who retire often say so near the end of a term, in late spring or early summer, so that cases already argued can be finished. That is custom, not a rule. Alito’s own words point to the same calendar: he will ask himself the question again when the term that opens Monday, October 5, comes to a close next summer. By then the country will know which party holds the Senate.
Pressure, Threats And The Leak
Alito has faced months of public pressure to go. In June, one news outlet wrongly reported that he was stepping down and quickly took the report back. In August he called the talk an unpleasant “reminder of mortality” and compared it to “vultures” circling overhead.
In the same interview, he spoke about the cost of the Dobbs ruling. He said it “required courage by all of the justices in the majority” and that some cases “have resulted in the loss of old friendships.” He called threats against justices “something new in our society and something that’s quite disturbing.” He also said he has an opinion about who leaked the draft of the Dobbs ruling in 2022, but that the evidence is “not strong enough” to name anyone.
No one can make a justice leave. Life tenure was written into the Constitution to keep judges free from political pressure. Alito has said he is staying for now. His memoir, “So Ordered,” comes out Tuesday, October 6. What he has told the country is that the question comes back every year, and the answer to who would fill his seat is on the ballot Tuesday, November 3.
Sources:
dailywire.com, ground.news, politico.com, minnlawyer.com
