Voters Split on Whether Amy Coney Barrett Should Be Confirmed to Supreme Court: Polls

Judge Amy Coney Barrett listens during her nomination to the Supreme Court, in Washington on Sept. 26, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

Voters are closely divided on whether Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett should get confirmed by the Senate to the court, according to new polls.

Thirty-seven percent of respondents favor confirming Barrett, while 30 percent oppose the confirmation, according to a Scott Rasmussen/Just The News poll.

The remaining 33 percent aren’t sure.

The divide was clearly along party lines. Nearly 70 percent of Republican respondents think the nominee should be confirmed, versus 52 percent of Democrats who think she should not be. A plurality of independents aren’t sure.

“It’s important to remember that 46 percent of voters had either never heard of Barrett or didn’t know enough to have an opinion of her,” Rasmussen, a co-founder of Rasmussen Reports before leaving several years ago, told Just The News about the survey, which polled 1,000 people on Sept. 26.

The margin of error was not released.

A Rasmussen Reports survey conducted on Sept. 27 found 39 percent of likely voters saying the Senate should confirm Barrett. A plurality, 49 percent, said the Senate should not, while the rest were undecided.

Most Republicans support a confirmation while most Democrats oppose it.

But majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents said they think the Senate will likely confirm Barrett.

President Donald Trump, left, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, second from left, first lady Melania Trump, center, and Barrett's family walk to the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on Sept. 26, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The poll of 1,000 likely voters had a margin of error of plus/minus 3 percent.

A survey from Monmouth University found a shift in public opinion on whether a Supreme Court nomination should be handled by a president near the end of his term, versus pushing it to after a presidential election result, when comparing results with a March 2016 poll.

A majority of respondents, 57 percent, then said the Senate should consider a nominee even though it was nearing the end of President Barack Obama’s term; a plurality now, 49 percent, believe the vetting should be put on hold until after the Nov. 3 election.

Another 47 percent think the Senate should proceed.

A strong majority of Republicans, 83 percent, said the nomination should move forward, versus the 36 percent who said it should have moved forward in 2016. Democrats have flipped, too: 16 percent say the current nomination should move forward, versus 74 percent who supported moving Obama’s nominee forward back then. Forty-eight percent of independents, versus 60 percent four years ago, support the Senate considering President Donald Trump’s nominee.

The poll was conducted with 809 registered voters from Sept. 24 to Sept. 27. It had a plus/minus 3.5 percent margin of error.

A previous poll found that 59 percent of respondents believe Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should follow Trump’s lead and reveal who he would choose to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.

Trump recently expanded his list he said he would draw from for vacancies on the nation’s highest court; Biden has so far refused to do so.