If you were a gambling person, would you bet that Ketanji Brown Jackson will be confirmed?

[DFW]

7. The bigger question is what happens if Mother Nature decides to put Clarence Thomas out to pasture

Replacing his extremist rightist ass with a centrist would still not swing the balance our way, but it WOULD give Roberts the chance to give himself a legacy he could be comfortable with leaving, instead of the black mark his Court has mostly been (admittedly, with the occasional bright spot shining through, though they have been the exception, not the rule, and ALL provided by him personally).

Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Phony Carrot are a solidly right wing monolith. Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson would continue to be the doomed 300 Spartans without a fourth center/center-left balance. Roberts would have to move from the right to the center to even make a difference, but he has shown traces of humanity peeking through now and again. Maybe he would be more motivated to do so if he were to become a true swing vote instead of "that guy on the right who threw the libbruls a (usually insignificant) bone every now and then."