Voters are evenly split over the Supreme Court’s decision to delay ruling on a case that could decide the fate of ObamaCare until after the 2020 presidential election, according to a poll released Monday.
Fifty-one percent of registered voters said in a new Hill-HarrisX survey that the court should have handed down a ruling before the November elections, while 49 percent said the justices were right to delay the case. The poll has a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
Democrats had sought to fast-track the case through the Supreme Court in hopes of elevating the issue ahead of Election Day.
Republicans, meanwhile, had pushed for a decision in 2021 amid concerns that a ruling striking down former President Obama’s landmark health care law could provide ammunition to Democrats at a time when the GOP is hoping to maintain control of the White House and the Senate.
The Supreme Court did not rule out an eventual review of the case.
President Trump and Republicans have long sought to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). But their efforts to replace it with new legislation have repeatedly fallen flat.
Democrats have seized on the GOP’s opposition to ObamaCare in recent years, using the efforts to repeal the law as a cornerstone of their successful 2018 campaign to recapture control of the House.
The court case revolves around the question of whether the ACA was invalidated when Congress passed a sweeping tax overhaul measure in 2017 removing the tax penalty for not having health insurance. The legislation left the rest of the ACA intact.
The ACA has become increasingly popular among Americans in recent years. Recent polling from Kaiser Family Foundation found that 50 percent of adults have a favorable view of the law, while about 39 percent view it unfavorably.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted March 22-23 among 1,002 registered voters.
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