How Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death Could Reshape The US Presidential Campaign

A presidential campaign that was already pulling the nation’s sharpest divisions has been rocked by the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which could reshape the elections at a time when some Americans were beginning to cast their votes.

For months, the contest has largely focused on President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, the biggest public health crisis in a century that has severely damaged his re-election prospects as the death toll in the United States rises. it is close to 200,000 people.

But in an instant, Ginsburg’s death added new weight to the election, with the potential that Trump or his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, could elect a successor who could decide abortion access, environmental regulations, and the power of the presidency for a generation.

With early voting underway in five states and Election Day just over six weeks away, Democrats and Republicans came together in large part in praising Ginsburg as a prominent legal thinker and advocate for women’s rights. But strategists from both parties also seized the moment to find an advantage.

Faced with the prospect of losing both the White House and the Senate, some Republicans saw the Supreme Court vacancy as one of the few avenues left for Trump to push supporters beyond his most loyal core of supporters, in particular. suburban women who have left the Republican Party of late. years.

“It’s hard to see how this doesn’t help Trump politically,” said veteran Republican strategist Alex Conant. “Biden wants this election to be a referendum on Trump. Now it’s going to be a referendum on whoever he appoints to the Supreme Court.”

Several Republicans close to the White House believe that Trump will likely nominate a woman, who could serve as a sort of counterweight to Biden’s choice of his running mate Kamala Harris, who would be the first woman to serve as vice president. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to swiftly put to a vote whoever Trump nominates. But it faces a possible split within its own ranks, including those of Utah’s Mitt Romney, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins and Colorado’s Cory Gardner. Collins and Gardner are in particularly tight races for re-election this fall.

That is fueling optimism among Democrats that the vacancy could drive home the meaning of the election to their base. “The implications for the Senate elections could be profound,” said Democratic strategist Bill Burton.

“The presidential race will see an immediate rotation, as activists on both sides will have a new energy,” he continued.

“The lingering question will be whether the huge protests around the Capitol and the country will ignite an energy so vigorous that it leads to terrible fighting.”

Biden, who has already pledged to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court, told reporters late Friday that “the voters must choose the president and the president must choose the judge to consider.”

Democrats are infuriated by McConnell’s promise to move forward, especially after he prevented President Barack Obama from appointing a judge to replace Antonin Scalia nine months before the 2016 election. That decision cast a long political shadow, which led Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who mounted a spirited bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, to make the expansion of the Supreme Court a centerpiece of his campaign. Biden rejected the idea.

Some Democrats privately admit that the Supreme Court vacancy could divert attention from the virus, which has been a central element of Biden’s campaign. Trump took the unprecedented step in 2016 of publishing a list of Supreme Court elections before he was elected, a move credited with unifying skeptical conservative voters to rally behind him.

Republicans also believe that the high-profile debate over Trump’s last election to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, helped the Republican Party retain the Senate during the 2018 midterm elections, when the party lost control of the House. that surrounded his 2016 candidacy, he published another list of potential Supreme Court candidates last week.

But some Democrats said the political environment is already overheated, with partisan divisions on everything from wearing a mask to curb the pandemic to addressing climate change. Ginsburg’s death, they say, may not change that. “It’s ugly enough enough,” said Megan Jones, a Democratic strategist who worked for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “I don’t know how this doesn’t turn into a fight of epic proportions.”

– AP