Support for Confirming Kagan Trails That of Recent Nominees; Forty-six percent want Senate to vote in favor of her nomination.
Byline: Jeffrey M. Jones
Synopsis: Forty-six percent of Americans want the Senate to vote in favor of Elena Kagan's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court while 32% do not. The initial level of support for Kagan's confirmation is lower than that for recent nominees other than Harriet Miers and Robert Bork.
PRINCETON, NJ -- A USA Today/Gallup poll finds just under half of Americans, 46%, in favor of the Senate's confirming Elena Kagan's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. That level of support is generally lower than what Gallup has found when it first polled about other recent court nominations, trailing all others except Harriet Miers and Robert Bork.
Generally, initial public support for Supreme Court nominees has not been high, reaching only 59% for John Roberts. This is partly because substantial proportions of Americans do not have opinions of the men and women chosen for the court. The level of unfamiliarity with recent nominees has varied from a low of 19% for Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor to a high of 44% for Bork.
The variation in the percentage of Americans who have no opinion of the nominees complicates historical comparisons. However, Kagan's relatively low historical ranking holds up even when one calculates the percentage in favor of her nomination only among those who have an opinion. The 59% of those with an opinion of the Kagan nomination who support her confirmation exceeds only the 55% of those with an opinion of the Miers and Bork nominations who supported their confirmations. Using this standard, Americans were initially most supportive of the nominations of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas, and Roberts.
The generally tepid response to Kagan's nomination echoes what Gallup found in its immediate-reaction poll to her nomination last month, when 40% rated President Obama's choice of her positively.
Support for Kagan Nomination by Subgroup
Democrats largely support Kagan's nomination, with 68% in favor and 12% opposed. On the other hand, a slim majority of Republicans, 51%, are opposed, with 26% in favor. Independents are more likely to favor than oppose the nomination.
Kagan, seeking to become the third woman on the current Supreme Court, and the fourth in history, receives about equal support from men (45%) and women (47%), though men are more likely than women to oppose her confirmation (36% to 28%).
Implications
Kagan's Senate confirmation hearings are set to begin later this month. In its history of polling...
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