Trump is an idiot, we know that. If he wants to get some anti-abortion moderates who find his grotesque personality and odious immigration policies too much to take to come out and vote for him anyway, you’d think he’d be smart enough to know that holding the vote on a new Supreme Court Justice until after the election could be a motivator for them. (Sure, some will be smart enough to know that win or lose, McConnell can leverage the power to get it done either way, but some won’t understand that.) Foolishly he’s insulting Senators left and right and pushing for a vote before the election, which means anyone who wants a conservative Justice but doesn’t like Trump could see their Justice seated and vote against Trump too. Win-win for those people.
I have no idea what’s going to happen with any of that. A lot depends on what McConnell really wants — which, in my view, is to maintain power. He has already solidified a conservative majority on the Supreme Court by stealing the Scalia seat so the Ginsburg seat is just frosting on the cake. I expect he would prefer to hold the vote after the election to allow his endangered Senators to do what they need to do to keep their seats. But if Trump loses and McConnell loses his majority, he cannot be sure that he’ll be able to keep his Senators together to do it in the lame duck. (They probably will do it anyway because they’re corrupt cowards who have lost all capacity for decent democratic governance. But you never know.)
And again, stealing the Scalia seat from Obama solidified a 5-4 majority. I don’t think they absolutely need this seat to overturn Roe. I fully expect that the conservative Catholic Roberts will be happy to vote with the right wingers when the right case comes before them.
With a 53-seat majority and the vice presidency, Republicans can’t afford more than three defections if Trump’s nominee comes to a vote on the senate floor, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has committed to making happen.
But that majority includes many vulnerable senators up for reelection this year, and while some – like Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) – have committed to supporting a nominee, others, like Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) have not yet commented.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), by many measures the most moderate Republican in the chamber, said she has “no objection” to the senate considering a Trump nominee but that they should not vote prior to election day and that the next president should fill the seat.
While Collins did not rule out supporting a nominee if one came to a vote, Trump nonetheless called her out at a rally in North Carolina on Saturday, taunting that when Supreme Court seats have opened up in past election years, “nobody said ‘oh let’s not fill the seat’… but we have some senators… I won’t say it Susan. I won’t say it Susan.”
Trump also hit out at Murkowski – who has not commented since Ginsburg’s death but said the afternoon before that she would not vote for a replacement ahead of inauguration day; Trump tweeted, “No Thanks!” in response to the Alaska Chamber of Commerce announcing a town hall with her.
Trump may have already burned his bridges with Murkowski. After she said in June she was “struggling” with the question of whether to vote for Trump in November, Trump vowed to campaign against her. “Few people know where they’ll be in two years from now, but I do, in the Great State of Alaska (which I love) campaigning against Senator Lisa Murkowski,” Trump tweeted. “Get any candidate ready, good or bad, I don’t care, I’m endorsing. If you have a pulse, I’m with you!”
Trump inanely believes that he’s extremely talented and accomplished because he can sign the piece of paper to appoint Justices who are handpicked by GOP legal operatives. Apparently, he doesn’t know that any Republican president who can hold a pen could do the same.
But you’d think he would be smart enough to see that he might be able to gain a few voters by pretending that they need to vote for him in order to get the seat. I don’t think he is. And if he’s counting on Mitch looking out for he should think again. Mitch cares about Mitch and Mitch can read polls.
Here’s the first poll about the Supreme Court seat:
The national opinion poll, conducted Sept. 19-20 after Ginsburg’s death was announced, suggests that many Americans object to President Donald Trump’s plan, backed by many Senate Republicans, to push through another lifetime appointee and cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.
The poll found that 62% of American adults agreed the vacancy should be filled by the winner of the Nov. 3 matchup between Trump and Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden, while 23% disagreed and the rest said they were not sure.
Eight out of 10 Democrats – and five in 10 Republicans – agreed that the appointment should wait until after the election.
I’m going to guess that 99% of the Republicans who believe it should wait until after the election will also say that Trump and McConnell should ram through the appointment in the lame duck if Trump loses. They have been trained to embrace hypocrisy.
Still, it’s interesting and perhaps may guide McConnell’s decision. One step at a time.