Republicans are cautiously optimistic the battle over a vacant Supreme Court seat will save the party’s Senate majority, hopeful the issue will convince disaffected, swing-state conservatives to reelect vulnerable GOP incumbents despite reservations about President Trump.
Senate Republicans have their backs against the wall in competitive battlegrounds — Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, and Maine — and states that typically vote GOP for president: Alaska, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, and South Carolina. An open seat the party holds in Kansas is also in some peril. Losing just three could put Democrats in charge of the chamber beginning in January. But Republican strategists are comparing the unexpected Supreme Court confirmation fight to catastrophic insurance.
Despite some downside risks, Republicans are expressing confidence that, especially in traditionally red states, the issue will be a net gain for the party. With some conservative voters tempted to support Democratic challengers, either to rebuke Trump or because of disillusionment with the incumbent, the Supreme Court’s injection into the campaign could lure them back into the GOP fold by reminding them why Senate control matters.
Republican insiders are particularly encouraged because Trump vowed to nominate a woman to succeed iconic liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The president is expected to put forward a nominee by week’s end.
“Once there is a qualified nominee, Democrats attack her at their own peril,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist whose firm, On Message, is advising Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, among others. “In the current alignment, Democratic candidates are counting on a lot of conservative suburban women to vote for them as a protest against Trump. This may cause a backlash that hurts them.”
The explosive row over the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh late in the 2018 midterm election season helped Republicans sink three red-state Democrats and grow their Senate majority.
But Democrats warn this is a different campaign playing out on different turf. Senate Democrats, and their party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden, are framing the tussle around healthcare, a strategy they expect will lead voters to side with their position that Trump should wait until after Election Day to nominate Ginsburg’s successor — and leave it to Biden if he loses.
The Trump administration is suing in federal court to invalidate Obamacare. The law is popular, and voters trust Democrats more than Republicans on the issue of healthcare. So Democrats are telling voters that if Trump and Senate Republicans get to choose Ginsburg’s successor, the court’s expanded conservative majority would throw out the healthcare law, costing voters prized benefits such as guarantees that insurance must cover preexisting medical conditions.
“Republicans have been dragged down all cycle by their records of refusing to stand up to the president for what’s right and voting to gut healthcare protections for preexisting conditions,” said Lauren Passalacqua, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “The question of filling this vacancy shines an even brighter spotlight on these vulnerabilities.”
Ginsburg died Friday at the age of 87 after a bout with pancreatic cancer, sparking a brawl over the high court in an already volatile campaign less than seven weeks until Election Day and with early voting underway. Privately, operatives in both parties concede the issue is an unpredictable political hand grenade.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately pledged Trump’s pick would receive a confirmation vote, and the president urged Republicans to process the nomination swiftly. Democrats cried foul, claiming Republicans are being brazenly hypocritical after blocking Barack Obama’s nominee to succeed conservative Justice Antonin Scalia after he died in February 2016, saying then that confirmations to the high court should cease in election years when the Senate and White House are controlled by opposing parties.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to be a political anchor on the party’s November prospects. The GOP is now staking the election on the notion that Democrats will overreach in their opposition to Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, bringing the issue of civil unrest back to the fore of the campaign. But Republicans acknowledge the issue could be a double-edged sword.
In North Carolina, a debate over the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court could elevate Tillis, who has consistently underperformed Trump in public opinion polls, by raising the profile of issues such as gun rights and abortion that motivate culturally conservative voters. But in Colorado, a practically blue state, the debate could squeeze Gardner, who trails but is overperforming the president, by galvanizing women to vote for his Democratic challenger to preserve abortion rights.
