Support for Barrett nomination ticks up to 48 percent: poll

Support for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, rose slightly over the last week, according to a poll released on Wednesday amid her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Morning Consult-Politico poll found Barrett’s nomination is supported by 48 percent of registered voters, while 31 percent say the Senate should vote her down. The percentage of voters who support her nomination rose by 2 percentage points in the past week.

Barrett’s nomination is more widely supported among voters than was Trump’s prior nominee, now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose contentious confirmation hearings in 2018 followed accusations of sexual assault from his high school days. Just 37 percent of voters agreed that Kavanaugh should be confirmed at the time of his confirmation hearings, Morning Consult noted. In particular, Barrett’s support among Democrats is now 12 points higher than Kavanaugh’s was in September 2018.

More voters also say that the Senate should move ahead with Barrett’s nomination, 44 percent, than say that the Senate should wait until the results of the November presidential election, 36 percent. Senate Democrats have faced pressure from some left-leaning activists to muster the opposition necessary to delay or prevent Barrett’s nomination ahead of the election, a prospect that some Senate Democrats have rejected out of hand.

Almost 6 in 10 Democrats — 59 percent — said in the poll that their party should delay a vote on Barrett until after the election.

The Morning Consult-Politico survey of 2,000 registered voters nationwide was conducted Oct. 7-9, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.