The political leanings of the Supreme Court justices
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Justice Samuel Alito narrowly overtook Justice Clarence Thomas as the Supreme Court's most conservative member this term, according to preliminary data that measures judicial ideology.
How to read the chart: An analysis by political scientists Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn, known as the Martin-Quinn Score, places judges on an ideological spectrum. A lower score indicates a more liberal justice, whereas a higher score indicates a more conservative justice.
In her first full term on the court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the most moderate member of the court's liberal wing (-1.704), with Justice Sonia Sotomayor being the most liberal (-4.09), per preliminary measurements of a score that judges on a liberal-conservative spectrum.
- Most liberal: Sonia Sotomayor (-4.09)
- Elena Kagan (-2.067)
- Ketanji Brown Jackson (-1.704)
- John Roberts (0.42)
- Brett Kavanaugh (0.446)
- Amy Coney Barrett (0.821)
- Neil Gorsuch (1.077)
- Clarence Thomas (2.358)
- Most conservative: Samuel Alito (2.568)
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include new preliminary scores for the 2022 term.
