Majority in new poll says Supreme Court vacancy should be filled by election winner

A majority of registered voters says the Supreme Court seat left vacant after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should remain open until after the presidential election, according to a new ABC News-Washington Post poll.

Fifty-two percent of respondents in the poll released on Monday said the winner of the coming presidential election, which is just 22 days away, should decide Ginsburg’s replacement and that the Senate should delay the vote to confirm the appointee until next year.

By contrast, 44 percent of voters back a Senate vote on President Trump’s conservative Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom he nominated in late September and for whom confirmation hearings are scheduled this week.

That gap has contracted in recent weeks, pollsters noted. Another ABC-Post poll released on Sept. 25, a day before Trump nominated Barrett, had a nearly 20-point gap regarding respondents’ preferences, with 57 percent of Americans saying the process should be delayed until after the election and 38 percent supporting the vacancy being filled quickly under Trump.  

The poll released Monday also found that 51 percent of independents oppose going forward with the confirmation process before the election — a 12-point drop from the late September poll.

A large partisan divide among Democrats and Republicans regarding their preference on the matter is evident, with 83 percent of the former answering in support of the proceedings being delayed and 77 percent of the latter in support of the proceedings happening immediately.

Seventy-seven percent of voters identified as conservatives in the new poll also backed having the current Senate move forward in the process, while 64 percent of voters identified as moderates and 87 of those as liberals supported a delay.

There was also a divide found among supporters and critics of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, with 68 percent of voters that supported the Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion saying confirmation hearings should be delayed and 71 percent of voters against the ruling saying the Senate should move forward.

The poll of 879 registered voters was conducted Oct. 6-9. The results have a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.