Voters in six battleground states trust President Obama, not Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, pick the successor to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, according to a new poll meant to pressure the Senate GOP to move on the president’s nominee.
By margins ranging from 5 to 23 points, voters in Arizona, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin told Public Policy Polling that they want Obama to make the pick.
The poll is being released by Americans United for Change which is making the stalled nomination of Judge Merrick Garland a big issue in battleground states and Senate elections. Garland is Obama’s pick to replace Scalia, though Senate GOP leaders have decided not to act until a new president is inaugurated.
Americans United for Change is driving the campaign against Senate Republican opposition to considering President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
The court has emerged as a key issue in the presidential election because if the Senate stands firm and refuses to let Garland’s nomination proceed, the next president will decide the political direction of the evenly split court for decades to come.
Trump has released a list of judges he would consider for the court, but that apparently didn’t wow the voters in the six states where the PPP poll was conducted.
LISTEN UP: New @ppppolls find 60%+ in Senate swing states support hearing for #SCOTUSnom Merrick Garland #DoYourJob pic.twitter.com/tJLGQXPYSI
— AU For Change (@AU4Change) June 28, 2016
“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 percent of voters in each of these states supports hearings for Garland, by margins ranging from 38 to 46 points,” said the poll analysis.
It also found little approval for Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who has led the effort to block Garland’s nomination. But most congressional leaders regularly rank low in national approval polls.
The full PPP-Americans United for Change memo is here.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
