RBG, Susan Collins, and lessons from Kavanaugh
If you're looking for a sign on how things will go, look at the early polls -- and look at Maine.
Hello and welcome to Margin of Error, a newsletter from me about the polls and the way they are covered.
If you’re new here, thanks for signing up! If you like what you read (or even if you don’t but found it interesting!), I’d be grateful if you would encourage others to sign up.
If someone sent this your way or you found this post through Twitter or other channels, make sure to subscribe below.
The United States is still grappling with the political and practical ramifications of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. Some quick, “snap” polls that attempted to put rapid developments in context and determine which party might benefit politically. But a more interesting signal might come from a Senate poll of the great state of Maine, which was conducted and released before the developments over the weekend.
It’s a nugget, a small sample, and just one data point, so the usual caveats apply. But Maine is a unique case with a closely watched Senate race, pitting a four-term incumbent against an upstart challenger in an era that has upended traditional political calculations.
Sen. Susan Collins was at the center of the last Supreme Court confirmation drama, and she has been relentlessly hammered in the two years since she voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Democrats have used that vote to further tie Collins, who until this campaign has had a reliably independent reputation, to President Donald Trump.
A Quinnipiac University poll, conducted September 10-14, surveyed likely voters in Maine about their primary motivations for their vote choice for senator. The economy, as it usually is, ranked No. 1, with 21% of respondents. But then came the Supreme Court, which doesn’t usually show up high on these lists. It was essentially tied for second — about as many voters chose it as they did healthcare, “law and order,” and the coronavirus.
The party splits are interesting: Overall, 19% of Democrats said the Supreme Court was the most important factor in their vote, second to healthcare (25%). Only 9% of Republicans picked the Supreme Court as their most important factor, as it came in a distant third to the economy (35%) and “law and order” (34%).
The emerging conventional wisdom is that Ginsburg’s death is the latest event that could help Trump surface from what is a fairly clear deficit. Mostly because the conventional wisdom says that conservatives are more energized by the Supreme Court. Or, if you’re being more cynical of pundit brain, it’s the latest invented reason Vice President Joe Biden could lose despite a large, stable lead in the polls.
But the Maine numbers are an interesting case of the potential short-term and long-term ramifications of these Supreme Court fights. We’re two years removed from Kavanaugh. We hear a lot of anecdotes about how it radicalized conservatives, but less about the signs that point to it having energized Democrats and further polarized the image of people like Collins, who has hedged, suggesting she will not vote on a nominee before the election.
Here’s a neat detail from the write-up of a Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll that found Collins trailing Democrat Sara Gideon:
“It’s great, but I don’t trust that she will follow through,” said Lucy Bisson of Lewiston, a registered Republican and self-described “moderate” who has backed Collins in all her previous Senate races but plans to vote for Gideon in November. “At this point, I don’t trust her to follow through on what she says."
Early polling has been clear
On the current vacancy, YouGov came out with a snap poll on Saturday of 1,200 registered voters. It found that most voters thought Biden would do a better job selecting a Supreme Court justice, and a majority of voters said Trump should not appoint a new justice. If he did nominate someone, by a 48-45 margin, more voters said the Senate should not confirm the nominee.
A Morning Consult/Politico poll had some further breakdown among party lines, suggesting both that independent voters were siding with Democrats and that the issue is earning more potency among Democratic voters -- 79% say the winner of the election should choose the next justice, while only 71% of Republicans said Trump should pick the justice regardless.
There are also some pertinent numbers in a round of battleground state polls from The New York Times and Siena College that were released before Ginsburg’s death. The polls showed that Biden led on which candidate voters trusted more to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice:
Arizona: Biden 53, Trump 43
North Carolina: Biden 47, Trump 44
Maine: Biden 59, Trump 37
This is all subject to change, especially once there is an actual nominee for the seat. But it presents challenges not only for Trump, but also for the vulnerable incumbent Republican senators who polls show are currently trailing in their respective races. In North Carolina and Arizona, Thom Tillis and Martha McSally have signaled their intention to support anyone Trump nominates. It is noteworthy that both of those senators have run pretty consistently behind Trump in polls of those states.
But indeed, in Maine, Collins is in another awkward spot with that staggering number.
Trump does not have the same advantage
In 2016, Trump held a clear edge among those who said Supreme Court appointments were the most important factor in their vote: He won those voters by a 56-41 margin over Hillary Clinton.
The hypotheticals and the realities of 2020, however, are different. In 2016, we were talking about replacing Justice Antonin Scalia, the most outspoken member of the court’s conservative wing. Today we’re talking about replacing not only a liberal justice, but a liberal cultural icon. That dynamic hasn’t been discussed enough in early news coverage.
We’ve already talked about repercussions in Maine. In 2018, even before the midterm elections, the Pew Research Center provided perhaps the first look at how the Supreme Court had become more of a motivator for Democrats. In 2016, just 62% of Democrats (compared with 70% of Republicans) said court appointments were very important to their votes. In 2018, according to Pew, 81% of Democrats (72% of Republicans) said court appointments were very important to their votes.
More recently, a Marquette University Law School poll (taken before Ginsburg’s death) found that 59% of Biden voters say that appointing the next Supreme Court justice is very important to their vote. Only 51% of Trump voters said the same. Both numbers will probably rise in the coming weeks, but the Morning Consult poll indicates Democrats are well aware — and even more aware — of the stakes.
And in a CNN poll last month, 78% of Biden supporters said nominating the next justice was extremely or very important to their vote, compared with 64% of Trump supporters. Interestingly, 47% of Biden supporters and 32% of Trump supporters said it was “extremely important.”
There is another key point to remember as you consider what will happen next: Though there are 40-something days to Election Day, the election is already happening. Millions of people are voting. There are stories of people voting early in Virginia, saying Ginsburg’s death motivated them to do so.
Thanks for reading Margin of Error. If you have any tips, comments, or insights about polling, email me at bplogiurato@gmail.com, or find me on Twitter @BrettLoGiurato.
If you liked what you read, share it with a friend and make sure to subscribe.