With Democrats enraged at the prospect of Republicans moving ahead with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, they are increasingly embracing the radical idea of expanding the court and adding liberal members should they gain power. But a new Washington Examiner/YouGov poll finds that doing so would be overwhelmingly unpopular — even if Republicans move full-steam ahead with Barrett’s nomination.
The results help explain why in last week’s debate, Joe Biden was so reluctant to say definitively whether or not he would support packing the court as president. They also demonstrate another example of the problems a victorious Biden would have in trying to reconcile the demands of his base with the image he is cultivating as a centrist who would seek to be a president to all people.
The Washington Examiner/You Gov poll finds that 51% to 42% registered voters oppose confirming Barrett before the new president is sworn in.
However, the poll also found that even if Barrett is confirmed before Election Day, voters would oppose Democrats expanding the court, 47% to 35%. In other words, the public would not want Democrats to respond to a swift Republican confirmation of Barrett by further escalating the Supreme Court wars. What gets tricky for Biden is that 60% of Democrats favor the idea of court expansion if Barrett is confirmed, compared to just 32% of independents. That means that very early on in his theoretical administration, Biden would be faced with a choice of whether to embark on a knock-down, drag-out court fight to appease the Left that will surely alienate independents or to disappoint liberals by dodging such a fight.
Even worse for liberals is that if Democrats go ahead with expanding the court, there is even less support for packing it to gain a reliably liberal majority. In fact, just 30% of voters say they would want the expanded court to be ”slightly,” “mostly,” or “overwhelmingly” liberal, compared to the combined 64% who would want it to be “balanced” or slightly/mostly/or overwhelmingly conservative.
As I have written previously, should Biden get elected, he’ll have a narrow window to get anything accomplished before the first midterm election looms. Leading with a nuclear court fight battle, that would also require eliminating the filibuster, would take up time and political capital that could otherwise be used to advance further COVID-19 relief, infrastructure, immigration, housing, healthcare, climate policy, or the rest of his $7 trillion-plus agenda.
