ALEXANDER BOLTON: McConnell’s shining moment.

Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is a huge victory for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a frequent target of conservatives who saved Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat for the right.

When Scalia died suddenly in February 2016, in seemed certain that then-President Obama would be able to tilt the court to the left with his third appointment.

Instead, McConnell issued a statement within hours that essentially shut the door on an Obama appointment, stating “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

The Senate GOP backed McConnell up, and Donald Trump won the presidential election in an upset of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Months later, Trump nominated Gorsuch. McConnell made good on his promise to see the judge confirmed, even triggering the controversial “nuclear option” to break Democrats’ blockade and end filibusters for Supreme Court nominees.

“When the final chapter in Mitch McConnell’s book is written, this will place very prominently,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).

“It prevented the court from going in a completely opposite direction, so in that sense, it’s a huge victory, consequential for decades,” he added.

McConnell on Friday, moments before the Senate confirmed Gorsuch, said the decision to keep the seat open was “the most consequential decision I’ve ever been involved in.”

The strategy leaves McConnell as an unlikely hero of hard-line conservative activists who have sometimes criticized him over as an establishment figure too willing to craft deals with Democrats.

True.