Here's Who Joe Biden Could Pick for the Supreme Court

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has pledged to appoint the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court if he prevails in November.

Biden's promise is a nod to the black voters who revived his once-flailing presidential campaign. His zealous courting of black votes has been awkward in stretches, as when he told radio host Charlamagne tha God that African Americans struggling to choose between himself and President Donald Trump "ain't black."

There are two broad groups Biden might select from, the first including sitting judges on federal and state courts, the second with more academic backgrounds. The leftwing group Demand Justice, which is pressing Biden to release a shortlist of potential nominees, has released its own list, which is heavy on academics and cause lawyers. A Washington Free Beacon analysis found the most likely candidates are U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, and U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, with Stacey Abrams as a possible wildcard pick.

Every president since Ronald Reagan has made at least two appointments to the Supreme Court. Biden's pledge gives him a relatively small pool of candidates with a traditional background for elevation to the High Court. According to biographical data kept by the Federal Judicial Center, there are 17 black female federal judges under the age of 60, the upper limit for Supreme Court nominees in recent decades. Trump's two appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were 49 and 53 respectively. Only a handful of black women on the federal bench are under 55, meaning Biden will have to cast a wider net for potential picks.

If elected, Biden will have to balance three competing problems when selecting a nominee: mounting pressure from the left to pick a candidate with varied occupational experiences, a possible Republican majority in the Senate, and the prospect of an expansive search.

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