Justice Samuel Alito has not retired, despite widespread speculation and an erroneous June report by NPR to the contrary. But suddenly, with Democrats increasingly likely to take control of the Senate, it seems the 76-year-old justice might have missed his window to step down and let Donald Trump name his successor.

Democrats are virtually certain to win a House majority in the upcoming midterms, and recent indicators put the Senate firmly in play. Trump — not on the midterm ballot but still the driving electoral force across the country — seemingly hits a new polling low every few days, sinking to 32 percent in a recent CNN poll. Democrats have become competitive, and Republicans have invested resources in previously safe red states, including Texas, Alaska, and North Carolina. Prediction markets, which long had the Democrats around 40 percent likely to win the Senate, now put the odds over 60 percent.

Yet Alito — perhaps relying on rosier midterm scenarios that seemed more likely for Republicans just weeks ago — has declined to step down. In a recent interview with CBS News, Alito confirmed he did not intend to retire imminently but acknowledged “it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term.” (While 78-year-old Clarence Thomas is the oldest current justice, he has suggested publicly that he will never retire; he stands to make history as the longest-serving justice in U.S. history in May 2028.)

Of course, if Democrats do flip the Senate, they’ll gain the power to reject Trump’s judicial nominations, including a replacement for Alito on the Supreme Court. And all indications are that they’d do exactly that, even if it required a blockade of a year or two.

Democrats still remember the Mitch McConnell–led Republican double cross of 2016 and 2020. When conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016 — with 11 months left in Barack Obama’s tenure as president — McConnell, then the Republican majority leader,........

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