A few polls released over the last week or so suggests a small majority of the public supports Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court nomination, which Republicans on the Hill and in the White House have been anxious to use to intimidate Senate Dems. The message is straightforward enough: the public backs this guy, so block him at your peril.
Bush and his allies are right, inasmuch as the polls really do show Alito with some support, but Republicans are kidding themselves if they think there’s any depth to the numbers.
A majority of Americans favor the confirmation of federal appeals court judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court and an even larger proportion believe Alito would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 high court ruling that legalized abortion, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.
As hearings begin today in the Senate on his nomination, the survey found that 53 percent of the public says Alito should be confirmed to serve on the court — virtually identical to the proportion that supported John Roberts’ confirmation as chief justice four months ago. One in four — 27 percent — say Alito should be rejected by the Senate.
Alito has benefited greatly from a lack of public attention. Since this nomination was announced, political news has focused on everything but Alito (NSA spying, Abramoff, Bush’s handling of Iraq, etc.) and it’s reflected in these numbers. At this point, only 18% of Americans believe Alito would vote to overturn Roe, which helps bolster his support (.pdf) overall. Does this suggest Americans believe Alito has a deep, abiding respect for precedent? I suppose it’s possible, but it’s far more likely that the public hasn’t heard much about Alito’s deep, abiding desire to undo Roe.
We can only hope the pollsters will do some follow-up work over the next week or so because support will drop once Americans learn more about Alito’s record. 53% believe he should be confirmed, but that includes 38% of self-identified liberals and 40% of self-identified Democrats.
The truth, I suspect, is that most of these people just don’t know much about Alito. That’s about to change.
The next question, then, is whether that will matter. Republicans won’t be able to boast about Alito’s national support, but will this embolden Dems? Give second thoughts to Snowe, Collins, and Chafee?