Cruz would be the one pick that could possibly be confirmed by the end of October.
I don’t think a lot of people realize how time consuming the vetting process is to nominate a judge. You can’t just nominate and start the voting process, each Senator can call a meeting with the nominee for instance. FBI checks can lead to “delays”, Judicial committee hearings can be “delayed” by “procedures”.
Since Cruz is a Senator, he could bypass a lot of those delays but I think the powers that be want a female. Who knows. Virtue signaling and identity politics should give way to concrete results IMO.
There is simply not enough time left before the election for the emotional reaction of “How dare he replace the great feminist with a man!” to leave the minds of female swing voters. If she had died last year, it’d be a different story. It’s got to be a woman.