Supreme Court Justice Nash Equilibrium
After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, there has been a large political divide on whether or not President Barack Obama being able to nominate a new justice in the last year of his Presidential Term. Congressional Republicans are mostly staunchly against any Presidential Supreme Court nomination by Barack Obama and have stated clearly that they will not confirm any such nomination. In this game between President Obama and Senate Republicans over the new Supreme Court Justice, each payoff is represented by four different outcomes depending on whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump win and whether the Senate is controlled by Republicans or Democrats. There isn’t an outcome of Donald Trump winning and Democrats controlling the senate because Democrats are depending on Trump’s downfall in order to get re-elected into their position, so it is likely they will not win the Senate if Donald Trump were to win the election. Without certainty of conformation hearings on Merrick Garland, President Obama’s Nominee, there are four outcomes that can be the result of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump winning the Presidential Election.
The first outcome is the Hillary Clinton wins and Republicans control the Senate
The second outcome is that Hillary Clinton wins and Democrats control the Senate
The third outcome is that Donald Trump wins and Republicans control the senate
The fourth outcome is that Merrick Garlands nomination is confirmed
The payoff matrix represents the payoffs to President Obama and Senate Republicans. President Obama in this payoff would prefer Merrick Garland over whomever Donald Trump would nominate and and Republicans would also prefer Merrick Garland over whomever Hillary Clinton would nominate, so the equilibrium in this matrix is both parties agreeing on Merrick Garland to be the new Supreme Court Justice. However, this is unlikely to be the case because each party considers their BATNA to be closer to their candidate and party controlling both the executive office and the senate, which means both parties would rather wait until after the election to pick a Supreme Court Justice (as Democrats’ ideal Justice would be more liberal than Garland and Republicans’ ideal Justice would be more conservative).
https://hbr.org/2016/09/applying-game-theory-to-the-supreme-court-confirmation-fight