Public Opinion in Texas and Donald Trump’s Nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court

Among those anticipating President Donald Trump’s announcement of his nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court, Texas political candidates and even some voters will be watching to see how the president’s choice plays with Texas voters. Below are a few public opinion data points from the archives of the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll that may help anticipate the public response.

1. The Supreme Court is very important to GOP voters. In the final UT/TT poll of the 2016 Election year, likely voters were asked which issue was most important for their vote choice from a list of 13 issue areas. The number one issue, chosen by a plurality of voters (25 percent) — and 35 percent of Trump voters — was the nomination of justices to the Supreme Court. It’s unlikely that the underlying sentiment has changed much in the intervening period: a year later, in October 2017 polling, when asked to rate Trump’s job performance across 13 issue areas, the nomination of court appointees, including to the Supreme Court, received the highest rating among Republicans (79 percent), second only to his handling of hurricanes hitting the U.S. mainland.

2. The Court is a political institution too. One can point to some evidence that, in our times of increased partisan polarization, the Supreme Court has been something of a safe haven for Texans who have either lost trust in the more democratic (note that small-d) legislative and executive branches, or who have abandoned the other branches for partisan reasons. However, assessments of the Supreme Court have also been buffeted by partisan and ideological politics. Some Democrats, for example, displayed a newfound faith in the Supreme Court after John Roberts somewhat unexpectedly upheld key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and the retiring Anthony Kennedy swung a 5-4 court in the direction of guaranteeing a broad right to same sex marriage. A look at different snapshots of partisan opinion of institutions illustrates fluctuations in assessments of the court — and, of course, the “trust” created by having one’s partisan in the White House.

(The Supreme Court upheld most of the Affordable Care Act and guaranteed same-sex marriage in June, 2015.)

(Despite a conservative majority on the court, Democratic trust surged after Donald Trump's election.)

3. Donald Trump’s strong approval ratings among Republicans remains his touchstone in choosing his nominee. While there are differences among the candidates on what we understand to be the Federalist Society’s long list and the president’s short list, the bottom line is that the president knows, per the opening point above, that this appointment is important to the base of the GOP, and very important to the activists within that group. His focus, clearly, is on not causing any friction with a critical part of his core constituency, which provides him with both direct support as well as leverage with much less popular Republicans in Congress, particularly those members attempting to keep their jobs in the midterm elections. The numbers also suggest that any expectations of a high-minded Congressional confirmation fight are likely to be disappointed.

4. Abortion politics are more complicated than they seem...no, really. Many people are focused on what happens after President Trump’s pick gets confirmed — in particular, the role abortion rights will play in both the confirmation process and the issue’s influence on the 2018 elections. This is more difficult to handicap than instantaneous reactions (and some of the data above) might indicate, because abortion attitudes, while partisan, are more complicated than they seem. We’ll write more about this later in the week, but in short: about a fifth of Texas Republicans are to some degree pro-choice, either through explicit description (when asked “are you pro-life or pro-choice?”), or on account of attitudes that allow for a range of exceptions under which they believe an abortion should be legal. This attitudinal landscape is the underlying issue with any expectations, real or promised, that the high court would quickly move to abolish Roe v. Wade, and send abortion policy-making back to the states. As we’ve written previously, challenges to abortion around the edges, but not frontally challenging the core right to abortion, tend to be popular in Texas; but measures that would remove the right to a safe abortion when necessary will be far more contentious. Only 17 percent of Texas voters and 22 percent of Republicans, as of February 2017, said that abortion should never be legal, a very consistent finding and one that is in line with national polling.