What Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death Means for the Electoral Map
Which states are most likely to be affected by the Supreme Court vacancy?
On Friday evening, it was announced that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died of pancreatic cancer. Given the stakes of a Supreme Court seat, it is no surprise that her passing is being discussed in the context of the 2020 election. While this is certainly a dramatic development, it is unclear how it will influence the campaign.
To process how this might impact the election it is worth setting out what we know and what we don’t. McConnell and Trump are planning to put up a conservative nominee, likely Amy Coney Barret, the 48-year-old 7th circuit judge. We don’t know when Trump will announce a nomination, but it will probably be soon. From there, things get quite uncertain. We don’t know the timeline for the nomination, and we certainly don’t know how the public will respond to this unprecedented situation. According to a Pew poll from August, Democrats care slightly more about the Supreme Court than Republicans, though a vacant seat on the Court could obviously shift those opinions.
Despite all this uncertainty, we are seeing a lot of folks making bold claims about how things will play out. Pundits are split on whether this is good or bad for Trump, or how…
