2026 Supreme Court predictions arrive with a crowded board and some hot topic (if not “third rail”) items. AR-15 bans, religious preschool funding, climate damages, immigration detention, third-country deportations, and Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship rules give the justices at least six substantial disputes before the holidays. Some of the more contentious opinions are likely to land well into 2027, and several of them will have precedential value, reaching well past the parties who brought them.

Nine people (justices) will decide those cases. Prior written opinions provide some legal clues. Temperament, judicial theories, preferred outcomes, and concern for the Court’s reputation belong in the handicap too. A lifetime appointment does not erase personality. A forecast that pretends otherwise leaves out part of how the work seems to actually get done.

The earlier Supreme Court marijuana and gun-rights prediction used an Over Under format to test possible coalitions. This expanded scorecard follows the votes, names the predicted “likely” deciding justices in each case, and takes a harder look at the human element behind a Court that increasingly has to defend its own credibility.