How RBG's Death Increases Trump's Chances in November

A court fight could turn out the GOP base in huge numbers.

Welcome to The Flashpoint.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday at 87, leaving a vacancy at the high court roughly six weeks before the general election and boosting President Donald Trump’s chances for re-election.

The president intends to nominate a replacement soon and while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn’t given any indication of when he’ll have a vote on the nominee, he’s made clear that vote will be coming—soon. Whether or not that confirmation (and it will be a confirmation) comes before or after the election will likely have much to do with what’s politically best for the GOP.

With Ginsburg’s death, the stage is set for the remaining month-and-a-half of the election cycle to become consumed with a high-stakes court fight in the Senate which will put the nation’s focus on the upper chamber and take it off of Trump. And that spells trouble for the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Here’s what I see as the main ways this changes the election in Trump’s favor.

Ginsburg’s death takes the focus off of Trump

While it’s of course too early to tell how this shakes out in polling, what we can be sure of is that the death of one of the most popular liberal justices on the court and a fight over her replacement will drive the Covid crisis and economic recession off of the front pages, at least for a while. And it will take the focus off of Trump himself and put it on a legislative battle that will turn out the GOP base.

With nearly 200,000 Americans already dead from the disease, Trump’s disastrous response to Covid alone should have been sufficient to lose him the election. An economic crisis threatens to leave tens of millions displaced from housing by the end of the year and already having to make difficult decisions about whether to buy food or clothing for their children.

This pain is only going to continue as the pandemic marches on. The suffering for people around the country due to the loss of life, patchwork response, and economic meltdown should have been enough to get Biden over the top without really trying. Ginsburg’s death puts the nation’s focus more fully on the court—and takes it off of Trump.

The GOP base could turn out in droves

If there’s one thing the GOP know how to do when it comes to elections (other than voter suppression), it’s turning out the Republican base on the issue of the courts. The party has a well-oiled machine that relies on appealing to the party’s evangelical base on social issues like abortion and gay rights and changing the makeup of the judiciary to roll back civil liberties.

When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, Republicans immediately withheld the possibility of a vote on then-President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, turning the court fight into a campaign issue. The seat became a campaign issue and helped skeptical GOP voters overcome their lack of enthusiasm for Trump to come out for him in key states in November.

Now, four years and two Supreme Court seats later, Ginsburg’s death leaves GOP voters with a chance to overturn Roe v. Wade, Obergefell v. Hodges, and any number of rulings giving women, the LGBTQ community, and people of other marginalized communities human rights . It’s a motivator for the right-wing.

The Biden campaign already appeared fully unprepared to close the enthusiasm gap

To say Biden’s campaign was unprepared for a shift in voter enthusiasm like this seems like an understatement at this point. Reporting from a number of outlets over the past week has shone a light on the state of play in Biden HQ, and it didn’t look good even then.

The campaign’s door knocking efforts are nonexistent. Phone banking prompts on Biden’s website were leftover from the primaries. And the former vice president seems content to run on not being Trump despite efforts by Bernie Sanders and others to get some—any!—policies that will turn out voters into the nominee’s platform and talking points. 

The enthusiasm gap is already becoming clear. One recent poll shows undecided Florida voters breaking for Trump over Biden at a rate of 4 to 1. Die hard Trump voters are more excited for their candidate than committed Biden voters are for him. Latino voters seem unimpressed. 

Add to this dangerous mix a motivating moment for the right and the Biden campaign could easily be caught flat-footed and lose what was still looking like a winnable election just days ago.

---