{"id":164447,"date":"2026-10-06T10:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T18:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/06\/samuel-alito-would-like-conservative-voters-to-know-his-seat-is-on-the-ballot\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T10:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T18:39:07","slug":"samuel-alito-would-like-conservative-voters-to-know-his-seat-is-on-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/06\/samuel-alito-would-like-conservative-voters-to-know-his-seat-is-on-the-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Alito Would Like Conservative Voters To Know His Seat Is On The Ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court opened its new Term on Monday, which means it\u2019s time once again for another entry into legal media\u2019s favorite pastime: Is Sam Alito going to retire? This round of speculation didn\u2019t come from a column in The Nation<\/a> or a misheard announcement in the courtroom. It came from Alito himself.<\/p>\n

On a media tour timed to the release of his book, So Ordered: An Originalist\u2019s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country<\/em> (the source of last year\u2019s retirement rumors), Alito told CBS News\u2019s Jan Crawford that he thought about retiring at the end of last Term but decided he \u201ccould still make a valuable contribution.\u201d He then made sure nobody got too comfortable, noting, \u201cIt\u2019s something that I think that somebody at my age has to think about every Term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he\u2019d keep revisiting the question, he answered, \u201cYeah, I think I have to.\u201d On Fox News Sunday, in the same sit-down where he told Shannon Bream he knows who leaked Dobbs<\/a>, he said he\u2019s been \u201cbemused by the retirement speculation.\u201d He added that \u201cit\u2019s not too pleasant to look up and see the vultures circling,\u201d and that \u201cit would be foolhardy to make a calculation [that] I\u2019m going to serve for a certain number of additional years.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of retirement talk from a man who isn\u2019t retiring.<\/p>\n

Of course, none of this changes anything about the current Term. Alito already settled that back in August, when he told the Wall Street Journal \u201c[o]bviously I\u2019m here for another Term\u201d and complained (again) about the \u201cvultures\u201d circling his seat<\/a>. That came after months of rumor mill activity<\/a> and NPR briefly publishing Nina Totenberg\u2019s prewritten retirement story<\/a> on the last day of the Term because she misheard an announcement about retiring court staff. Even back in 2024, after his drafts were so far afield that he lost two majorities, he reportedly reflected in private about retirement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the dangling nature of, \u201cmaybe next year, we\u2019ll see\u201d (four weeks before an election that will decide which party controls the Senate that would confirm his replacement) is<\/em> new. It\u2019s like he\u2019s throwing it out there to motivate conservative voters in the midterms. Hell, Alito even told CBS that timing a departure is a challenge because \u201cit\u2019s too hard to predict what the political situation will be and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.\u201d After last year\u2019s non-retirement blocked the GOP\u2019s ability to fill the seat with young MAGA blood (this spring, the Senate was \u201cprepared\u201d to confirm a replacement<\/a> quickly), putting his seat on the ballot \u2014 in a tightening midterm year \u2014 is the next best thing.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Samuel Alito Sees \u2018Vultures\u2019 Circling His Supreme Court Seat But Has No Plans To Retire<\/a>
Sam Alito Rings In The New Term By Telling Fox News He Knows Who Leaked Dobbs<\/a>
NPR Reports Sam Alito Retires From Supreme Court (Spoiler Alert: He Did Not)<\/a>
The Alito Retirement Rumor Mill Is Swirling<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Samuel Alito Would Like Conservative Voters To Know His Seat Is On The Ballot<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Supreme Court opened its new Term on Monday, which means it\u2019s time once again for another entry into legal media\u2019s favorite pastime: Is Sam Alito going to retire? This round of speculation didn\u2019t come from a column in The Nation<\/a> or a misheard announcement in the courtroom. It came from Alito himself.<\/p>\n

On a media tour timed to the release of his book, So Ordered: An Originalist\u2019s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country<\/em> (the source of last year\u2019s retirement rumors), Alito told CBS News\u2019s Jan Crawford that he thought about retiring at the end of last Term but decided he \u201ccould still make a valuable contribution.\u201d He then made sure nobody got too comfortable, noting, \u201cIt\u2019s something that I think that somebody at my age has to think about every Term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he\u2019d keep revisiting the question, he answered, \u201cYeah, I think I have to.\u201d On Fox News Sunday, in the same sit-down where he told Shannon Bream he knows who leaked Dobbs<\/a>, he said he\u2019s been \u201cbemused by the retirement speculation.\u201d He added that \u201cit\u2019s not too pleasant to look up and see the vultures circling,\u201d and that \u201cit would be foolhardy to make a calculation [that] I\u2019m going to serve for a certain number of additional years.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of retirement talk from a man who isn\u2019t retiring.<\/p>\n

Of course, none of this changes anything about the current Term. Alito already settled that back in August, when he told the Wall Street Journal \u201c[o]bviously I\u2019m here for another Term\u201d and complained (again) about the \u201cvultures\u201d circling his seat<\/a>. That came after months of rumor mill activity<\/a> and NPR briefly publishing Nina Totenberg\u2019s prewritten retirement story<\/a> on the last day of the Term because she misheard an announcement about retiring court staff. Even back in 2024, after his drafts were so far afield that he lost two majorities, he reportedly reflected in private about retirement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the dangling nature of, \u201cmaybe next year, we\u2019ll see\u201d (four weeks before an election that will decide which party controls the Senate that would confirm his replacement) is<\/em> new. It\u2019s like he\u2019s throwing it out there to motivate conservative voters in the midterms. Hell, Alito even told CBS that timing a departure is a challenge because \u201cit\u2019s too hard to predict what the political situation will be and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.\u201d After last year\u2019s non-retirement blocked the GOP\u2019s ability to fill the seat with young MAGA blood (this spring, the Senate was \u201cprepared\u201d to confirm a replacement<\/a> quickly), putting his seat on the ballot \u2014 in a tightening midterm year \u2014 is the next best thing.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Samuel Alito Sees \u2018Vultures\u2019 Circling His Supreme Court Seat But Has No Plans To Retire<\/a>
Sam Alito Rings In The New Term By Telling Fox News He Knows Who Leaked Dobbs<\/a>
NPR Reports Sam Alito Retires From Supreme Court (Spoiler Alert: He Did Not)<\/a>
The Alito Retirement Rumor Mill Is Swirling<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court opened its new Term on Monday, which means it\u2019s time once again for another entry into legal media\u2019s favorite pastime: Is Sam Alito going to retire? This round of speculation didn\u2019t come from a column in The Nation or a misheard announcement in the courtroom. It came from Alito himself. On a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":164439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}