Poll: 46 percent of Republicans want hearings on Scalia’s replacement

Nearly half of Republicans want Senate hearings on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, according to a new poll.

About 46 percent back hearings in an ABC News/Washington Post survey released Thursday.

{mosads}Roughly 49 percent oppose Senate hearings on a candidate to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, however.

The results show strong Republican opposition to their own party’s senators.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have repeatedly vowed they will not consider any of Obama’s nominees during the final months of his presidency.

Republican lawmakers argue that the next president should name a nominee, allowing voters to have a voice in the process by picking Obama’s successor first.

The new survey of 250 Republicans, conducted between March 3 and 6, has a 3.5 percent margin of error.

Reports emerged on Wednesday that Obama is nearing a decision on who he will nominate for the Supreme Court’s vacant bench.

“The president’s made some progress,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

The president reportedly has five contenders in mind, three of whom are considered serious possibilities.

The leading contenders include Merrick Garland and Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and Paul Watford of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Long-shot options include Jane Kelly of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis and U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington, D.C.

Federal Appellate Judge Adalberto Jordan on Wednesday removed his name from consideration. Attorney General Loretta Lynch withdrew on Tuesday, as did Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-Nev.) late last month.