WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 25: U.S. President Joe Biden (L) looks on as Ketanji Brown Jackson, circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, delivers brief remarks as his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court during an event in the Cross Hall of the White House February 25, 2022 in Washington, DC. Pending confirmation, Judge Brown Jackson would succeed retiring Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and become the first-ever Black woman to serve on the high court: Drew Angerer/Getty

Staff Report –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court pick, has more initial support for her confirmation than any of the three jurists nominated by President Donald Trump, according to a new Morning Consult/Politico poll. Only 17 percent of voters oppose the nomination.

A plurality of voters, 46 percent, said the Senate should vote to confirm Jackson, who’s set to begin meetings with senators this week, compared with 17 percent who said it should not, while 36 percent said they were unsure.

Seven in 10 Democrats support Jackson’s confirmation, higher than the initial share of Republicans who supported Trump’s first pick, Justice Neil Gorsuch, but roughly in line with the initial base support garnered by Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.

The bulk of Republican voters, 45 percent, said they didn’t know or had no opinion about whether the Senate should confirm Jackson, mirroring the tepid initial response to her nomination from the party’s leaders.

The strong initial showing for Jackson, who has been picked to replace Justice Stephen Breyer after he retired as the end of this court term, will come as welcome news for a president looking for a political victory as his domestic agenda remains on ice and he deals with a war crisis abroad.

But despite the historic proposition of seating a Black woman on the nation’s highest court, voters do seem to recognize the relatively low stakes her nomination poses to the court’s ideological balance.

About a third of voters, 34 percent, said Jackson’s confirmation would make the Supreme Court at least somewhat more liberal. But 36 percent who said her ascension would not change the court’s ideological balance at all.

Roughly 4 in 5 Democrats said Jackson’s nomination made them feel “hopeful,” along with 3 in 4 who said it made them “happy and proud.”

A full 68 percent of Democratic voters said they were “excited” about it, slightly less than the 75 percent who expressed excitement about the prospect of a Black female nominee in early February.

Among Republican voters, the most common emotions were frustrated (43 percent) and indifferent (42 percent).

Nearly 3 in 5 voters have yet to form opinions about Jackson, including 31 percent who say they haven’t heard of her. Her name recognition is just slightly lower than that of Chief Justice John Roberts, and 35 percent they’ve never heard of. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas have the highest name recognition of any judges on the bench, with three-quarters of voters having heard of each of them.

The latest Morning Consult/Politico survey was conducted Feb. 25-27, 2022, among a representative sample of 2,004 registered U.S. voters, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.