Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of President Joe Biden’s race- and gender-based standard for nominating a new Supreme Court justice, according to a new poll.
SO WHAT
Biden either has no idea what Americans want or doesn’t care.
THE NUMBERS
The ABC News/Ipsos poll, released Sunday, found an overwhelming majority of Americans think the president should consider “all possible candidates” in his search to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Breyer.
Biden on Thursday said he’d fulfill the pledge he made during the spring 2020 presidential primaries, and nominate a black woman to the nation’s highest court.
- But even a majority of Democrats would prefer Biden expand his search to include all candidates, according to ABC News/Ipsos.
- Nearly all Republicans, 95%, say the same.
- Less than 1 in 4 Americans believe the president should follow through on his campaign promise.
“The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity. And that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” Biden said Thursday during a White House ceremony in Breyer’s honor. “It’s long overdue in my view. I made that commitment during the campaign for president, and I will keep that commitment.”
ZOOM OUT
Pressure from the radical but influential progressive faction within his party has forced Biden’s hand on signaling toward woke issues that are often unpopular with the broader public.
- Meanwhile, research has suggested that support for progressive policies declines when Democrats frame their positions in racial terms.
- A YouGov/Economist poll from July found the majority of Americans who have heard of “critical race theory” – the en vogue theoretical framework for explaining racism in America – hold an unfavorable opinion of it.
- The same poll found that less than half of Americans think racism is a “big” problem in the country today.