As of now, there are only five appellate seats that will be available for Donald Trump to fill after he becomes president again on January 20, 2025: one on the First Circuit, two on the Third Circuit, one on the Fourth Circuit, and one on the Sixth Circuit. President Biden’s nominations for four of these seats are on the Senate floor awaiting action, but Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has concluded that they lacked the votes to get confirmed and has traded them away for confirmation votes on 13 district judges.

Thanks in large part to Republican control of the Senate in the last two years of President Obama’s second term, Trump had eighteen or so appellate seats to fill when he became president in 2017. (I say “or so” because I can’t readily tell whether one judge announced his decision to take senior status before Trump’s inauguration or just after.) Over the course of his first term, he appointed a remarkable 54 appellate judges.

There are by my quick count some two dozen federal appellate judges who were appointed by Republican presidents and who are eligible to take senior status (or to retire with full pension) and thus create additional seats for President Trump to fill. We shall see how many of them make that decision and when.