Majority favors nominating an African American woman to SCOTUS

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 28: Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominated to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, is sworn in to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on pending judicial nominations on Capitol Hill, April 28, 2021 in Washington, DC.  (Photo by Kevin Lamarque-Pool/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden pledged to nominate the first Black woman to the high court during his 2020 campaign, and voters support him doing that:  63% favor the move, while 28% oppose it, according to the latest Fox News poll.  

Biden nominated the first African American woman to be the next Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday.  If confirmed, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson would replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement in late January. The new survey was conducted before the Friday announcement (Feb. 19-22, 2022).  

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Majorities are favorable across the board, with Democrats (91%), Black voters (81%), Hispanic voters (71%), voters under age 30 (70%) and women (65%) the most receptive.

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Still, while most support nominating a Black woman, almost 6 in 10 voters think it was inappropriate of the president to consider only African American women for his first nomination to the Supreme Court (57% inappropriate vs. 38% appropriate). 

Republicans (84%), White evangelicals (77%), rural voters (69%), seniors (63%), and men (61%) are among those most likely to think the process was improper.

Majorities of Democrats (68%), Black voters (65%), and Hispanic voters (54%) think the pledge was appropriate.

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Some 40% of those favoring the nomination of a Black woman to the high court still think it was inappropriate for Biden to promise to consider only Black women for his first nomination.  

Those who think Biden’s approach to filling the seat was inappropriate split on nominating an African American woman to the high court in general: 45% favor vs. 45% oppose.

"Polls from the last few presidential elections show that voters care about the judiciary," says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Democrat Chris Anderson. "Unless there’s a bombshell about this nominee, the president is doing something here that will appeal to his base with little electoral downside."

The 2020 Fox News Voter Analysis national election survey found that 91% of voters said nominations to the Supreme Court were a factor to their vote and those voters broke for Biden over Donald Trump by 10 points.

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Conducted Feb. 19-22, 2022 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,001 registered voters nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.