For someone that no one but lawyers and politics geeks had heard of before the last week or two, Sonia Sotomayor is polling well in two pre-confirmation hearings surveys.
In Gallup's new poll, she gets an overall 47% favorable reception, with 33% saying she's a fair or poor choice, and 20% with no opinion. Some of the highlights from the Gallup poll:
Gallup conducted similar reaction polls immediately after former President George W. Bush's nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court in 2005. Although in all instances, the reactions were more positive than negative, the net positive rating (the percentage excellent or good minus the percentage only fair or poor) was highest for Roberts and Sotomayor, and lowest for Alito and Miers....
Interestingly, the gender gap in positive reactions to Sotomayor [54% of women support her, compared 42% of men] is the largest such gap for the four most recent Supreme Court nominations -- in either direction. Alito had higher approval among men than among women (by eight points), but both Miers and Roberts had essentially the same level of positive reactions across genders....
[I]t appears Americans believe that Sotomayor's intellectual credentials and experience were more important to Obama in his decision to nominate her than were her demographic characteristics.
The May 26 Gallup Poll asked Americans for their perceptions of the importance of five of Sotomayor's characteristics in Obama's thinking when he decided to nominate her. The public downgrades the perceived importance to Obama of Sotomayor's gender and ethnicity; only 39% and 34%, respectively, call these very important to him. Instead, majorities believe that he heavily valued her experience as a federal judge (61%), her intellect (59%), and her views and judicial record (52%).
Go figure, the American people don't think Obama was pandering in selecting Sotomayor. They also appear to find her eminently qualified, as anyone with even a passing familiarity of her record would conclude. So much for Jeffrey Rosen and pals.
Likewise, Rasmussen reports solid support:
Forty-nine percent (49%) of all voters have a favorable opinion of Sotomayor while 36% hold an unfavorable view. Twenty percent (20%) have a Very Favorable opinion while 17% hold a Very Unfavorable view. Forty-eight percent (48%) hold their views less firmly, and 15% are undecided. Once again, the partisan divide is as expected.
Forty-three percent (43%) believe that Sotomayor is politically liberal while 32% view her as a moderate. A plurality of Democrats view the Supreme Court nominee as politically moderate while most Republicans and a plurality of unaffiliateds view her as politically liberal.
Sotomayor heads into the confirmation process with solid support from the American people. As we move away from the ridiculous polemics of the far right and get into the actual issues that Judge Sotomayor would be ruling on, expect to see some fluctuation in those numbers, though based on previous polling of SCOTUS nominees not a whole lot.
