Politico reports:

As news of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death rippled across Washington on the evening of Sept. 18, some of President Donald Trump’s conservative allies likened the sudden Supreme Court vacancy to an eleventh-hour bailout.

Besieged by slipping poll numbers and new accusations that he misled Americans about the dangers of Covid-19, Trump — and his closest aides and allies — saw a Republican-led confirmation fight as a welcome detour to galvanize his base in the final month before Election Day.

But a month later, as Senate Republicans begin the process of confirming Amy Coney Barrett as Ginsburg’s replacement, a growing number of conservatives involved in the process believe the last-minute judicial appointment can no longer save Trump — and they are adjusting their plans accordingly. As the president returns to the campaign trail this week after his own bout with Covid-19, many of the conservative groups that have spent months buttressing his 2020 apparatus and amplifying his criticism of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden instead have their eyes trained on Barrett’s prospects in Washington.

Conservatives who once considered Trump’s success in the Nov. 3 election paramount to their goal of dismantling social progressivism have quietly shifted their focus to the lightning-fast Supreme Court confirmation fight. In Barrett, a 48-year-old Catholic mother of seven and protégé of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the president’s traditionalist supporters see an easier short-term path to building a bulwark against the cultural shifts they oppose, and one that’s more likely to yield long-term results. [Continue reading…]