Swing state voters don’t want Donald Trump determining the future of the Supreme Court, a new set of PPP polls finds. According to the polls of Arizona, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin:
Voters in all six states, by margins ranging from 5 to 23 points, say they don’t trust Donald Trump to nominate a Supreme Court justice. Voters in WI (34% trust Trump, 57% don’t) and in the home of Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley of IA (35% trust Trump, 52% don’t) are particularly skeptical of Trump’s ability to name a Justice. [...]
Because voters trust President Obama to make a Supreme Court choice and don’t trust Trump to, there’s overwhelming support for the Senate to move forward with confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. More than 60% of voters in each of these states supports hearings for Garland, by margins ranging from 38 to 46 points.
What do these states have in common that makes this polling particularly relevant? Oh, that’s right. They all have Republican incumbent senators up for re-election. And those senators could face some trouble over their role in blocking even hearings for President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.
Their approval numbers are mediocre, their races are close, and voters say that they’re less likely to vote for them because of their opposition to hearings for Merrick Garland. Right now 4 of these 6 Senate races currently have the candidates within 1 or 2 points of each other. In all 6 of them, voters say by at least a 15 point margin that they’re less likely to vote for their Republican incumbent because of their opposition to hearings for Garland. And these are Senators who don’t have much goodwill to fall back on. 5 of the 6 have negative approval ratings and the one exception, Chuck Grassley, still has his worst approval numbers in years with them coming in only narrowly on positive ground at 43/40.
This Supreme Court nomination is where Republican senators can’t duck or evade on their support for Trump. It doesn’t matter if they’re “endorsing” him or “supporting” him or flat out refusing to say. If they’re holding a Supreme Court seat open through almost an entire year of Obama’s term, they’re holding that seat open in hopes of Trump filling it. What more powerful statement of support is there than that?
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