US Supreme Court vacancy adds to pile of issues weighing on voters

The Republican Party headquarters in this former steel town was buzzing Saturday as supporters filed in to pick up Trump 2020 stickers and yard signs, including ones declaring: “Your pro-life vote matters."

But even as coverage of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death played on Fox News on an office television, the political fight brewing in Washington over her replacement felt like a world away to some.

Also read: Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew what to do with her time

“I don't really pay attention to the news much," said Dan Thomas, a 24-year-old from Johnstown, in western Pennsylvania, after he filled out paperwork to vote for the first time. It wasn't the court that brought Thomas in. (When a friend tried to convince him it was a big deal, he shrugged: “Oh, OK. Whoopie.”) Instead, he's convinced that President Donald Trump is fighting for working-class voters like him in a tough economy and is “the best shot this country has."

In dozens of conversations here and in other battleground states since Ginsburg's death of cancer Friday, the bitter debate over the court was buried under a pile of other, more pressing concerns.

Most voters were quick to name health care, the economy and personal complaints about Trump, a Republican, and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, as driving their votes — well before the Supreme Court vacancy. And those who were fired up about the issue were already strongly committed to voting for either Trump or Biden, reflecting stark polarization in a country where only a sliver of the electorate remains undecided.

With so many people already locked in and in the middle of so much upheaval — from the ongoing pandemic to the economic recession to the reckoning over racial justice and policing — the interviews suggest the vacancy could be a less decisive factor than it might have been in a less extraordinary year. And they revealed the challenge ahead for both parties as they try to use the fight to their advantage.

To be sure, the court debate could shift quickly once Trump names his nominee Saturday and specifics emerge about her personal background and past decisions. For now, the key question appears to be whether voters approve of Trump and Republicans' rush to fill the seat.

“It depends on how it's framed,” said Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican pollster. “If it looks like a blatant political power play (by Trump and Republicans), it will help the Democrats. If it's framed as helping the court do its job, it will help the Republicans. Framing is everything.”

Also read: Without Ginsburg, US Supreme Court could rule three ways on Obamacare

Both sides believe the fight could play to their advantage, with Trump's campaign banking on a confirmation battle energizing conservative voters who may be on the fence about Trump but care deeply about the courts.

Biden's aides concede that's likely the case, but also believe it will energize their voters, including women and young people, who may be especially concerned about future court decisions affecting abortion rights and climate change. As evidence, they point to the record-breaking $91 million-plus they raised in online donations in just over a day after Ginsburg's death.

Biden's team also plans to tie the vacancy to the fight over health care. One week after the election, the Supreme Court is due to hear a case — backed by the Trump administration — that could do away with the Affordable Care Act.

Several polls ahead of the 2016 presidential election suggested Trump supporters were at least somewhat more likely to say Supreme Court nominations mattered to them. But more recent polling shows the gap between Trump and Biden voters has narrowed – or even reversed.

Before Ginsburg's death, a Pew Research Center poll found roughly as many Biden backers, 66 per cent, as Trump supporters, 61 per cent, listed Supreme Court appointments as “very important” to their choice. And an August CNN poll found 47 per cent of Biden supporters, but just 32 per cent of Trump supporters, labelled nominations as “extremely” important to them.

Trump and his aides have long pointed to the contentious clash over Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination just before the 2018 midterm elections as a seminal moment, believing it energized Republicans and helped the party expand its Senate majority, even as it lost control of the House.

But AP VoteCast polling of the electorate found that voters who said that court fight was “very important” to their vote backed Democrats over Republicans in congressional races by a wide margin, 58 per cent to 42 per cent.

Suzana Hutz, a 70-year-old retired software engineer from Tempe, Arizona, said she didn't need any extra motivation to vote against Trump — a vote she's been waiting to cast for the last four years. She's already giving money to Biden and local Democrats, including Mark Kelly, who is running against Republican Sen. Martha McSally in a race that could help decide control of the Senate.

If Republicans confirm another Supreme Court justice, “this country is going to go backwards 50 years in all the social programs and everything that they accomplished so far,” Hutz said.

For others, the fight was persuasive. James Kirkpatrick, an independent, held his nose four years ago, he said, when he voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Up until recently, he supported the Green Party's candidate for president, Howie Hawkins. But with a Supreme Court vacancy, he again is swallowing hard to support Biden in November. He worries that Trump's court pick could thwart rights for Native Americans, women and communities of colour, as well as side with corporate interests at the expense of working-class Americans.