I'll have to use my own judgement, but to clarify what I mean by "bizarre", I'm talking about someone like Matt Gaetz or Kash Patel - lacking experience, publicly flaunts the law, that sort of thing.
The idea of this market is to determine whether Trump will try to appoint someone beyond the norm. Therefore, if they are "merely" as controversial as a sitting justice, that would be a NO. A nominee would not resolve YES on the basis of ideological extremism unless they were substantially further right than Thomas and Alito, and they would not resolve YES on the basis of potential crimes unless the accusations were more credible than those against Kavanaugh.
Examples of what would be a clear YES would be Judge Judy or Marjorie Taylor Greene. To give you an idea of where "the line" is: I would say Ted Cruz is probably the craziest example I could give that would still resolve NO.
Update 2025-06-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has provided further thoughts on evaluating nominees:
Nominee not being a circuit judge is not an automatic YES, but a lack of significant legal experience (e.g., not SCOTUS-caliber, inability to demonstrate basic legal knowledge) would lean towards YES.
Specific examples discussed (these are noted as tentative conclusions by the creator):
Likely NO: Amul Thapar, Andrew Oldham, Aileen Cannon (perceived bias not necessarily "out of the ordinary"), James Ho (ideology not seen as more extreme than Justice Thomas), Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley.
Likely YES: Emil Bove (insufficient SCOTUS-caliber experience, ethics concerns), Jeanine Pirro (lacks understanding of SCOTUS-level law, objectivity concerns).
On the fence: Mike Lee (concerns about legal experience level relative to others and controversies like election challenges).
Confirmation hearings may be reviewed, particularly to assess a nominee's demonstration of basic legal knowledge.
1,000My thoughts on potential candidates:
In recent years, SCOTUS nominees have almost all been federal appellate judges, but this hasn't always been the practice; for a long time, there were appointees who were state judges, Justice Department officials, senators, governors, and so on. I'm not going to resolve YES just because someone isn't a circuit judge, but I would be inclined to do so if they don't have much legal experience.
Some of the top candidates (on Kalshi) are Amul Thapar, Aileen Cannon, Andrew Oldham, and James Ho. Thapar and Oldham are both clearly within the ordinary range of judicial nominees and would definitely resolve NO. Cannon is considered potentially biased due to some of her decisions while presiding over Trump's classified documents trials, but I think she's still probably a NO; there are always some potential biases for nominees and this doesn't seem all that out of the ordinary. Ho is clearly pretty far to the right, but I don't see anything that indicates he's more extreme than Thomas, so he would probably be a NO as well. These are tentative conclusions; I haven't done a deep dive into any of their records.
With Trump rejecting the usual judicial pipelines, it seems possible he'll appoint someone out of the blue. For example, he nominated Emil Bove to the Third Circuit; if he had nominated him to the Supreme Court, I would resolve YES. His legal experience doesn't seem to be on the Supreme Court caliber; he was an assistant attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of Trump's personal lawyers, and had a very brief stint in the DoJ. He's also had various ethics concerns, particularly involving the Adams case.
Some of the names I've heard tossed around include Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Mike Lee. All of them are on the right, but as far as I can tell they're no more extreme than Thomas. Cruz and Hawley have a lot of legal experience; Lee isn't really on quite the same level. There have been some notable controversies, though, including the election challenges. I think Cruz and Hawley are both NO's but I'm on the fence for Lee.
A very clear YES would be someone like Jeanine Pirro, who has been mentioned as... what might be a joke? She worked as a county judge and prosecutor before the Fox show, but nothing in her career seems to indicate she has any understanding of the kind of law a Supreme Court Justice has to handle. And with all of her controversies and political attitudes, I don't see how anyone could seriously claim she would be remotely objective on the bench.
I'd also look at a nominee's confirmation hearings to see if anything raised there changes my mind, including whether they can demonstrate basic legal knowledge.
