I'll write more later, but one thing people get wrong about legislative parties is idea maxing seats is the primary goal. Parties are happy to trade seats for durable policy changes. Think Dems on ACA or GOP on tax cuts.

Idea GOP *wouldn't* trade seats for Court shift is nuts.

Obviously, individual members might not like being on the chopping block. But as a collective, parties love to entrench longstanding policy goals, regardless of short-term cost. Temporary control of Congress, in the U.S. system with so many veto points, is nothing, in comparison.

Now, I don't think there's even going to be that big of a marginal electoral effect from doing this.

But even to the degree there was, losing 2 or 3 marginal seats and Senate control for a few years will not be seen as a some sort of damning problem.

Especially given that NOT going for the durable policy change might result in the same loss of control.

The converse of all of this is also important: you can't really judge the success of a party simply by looking at how many seats it has in Congress. I think a lot of people make that mistake. "Dems lost seats, so they must be doing something wrong." Or vice-versa.

That's a wildly electoral-centered view of party politics. It sort of pairs with the horse-race fascination. But of course politics is pretty hollow if you don't think about policy, and the connection between elections, seats, and policy change.

None of this is to say that parties don't try to win seats! That's of course an important goal. And both swing-seat members and leaders may often benefit by eschewing party policy goals in order to maintain seats/control. But it's far from a universal attitude/strategy.