Turnout likely to affect election results more than Supreme Court fallout

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The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has set off a fight over how and when her seat on the high court should be filled. We talked about the political fallout over that fight with political analyst Mike O’Neil.

O’Neil says that the window of time for Republicans to fill this seat is very limited.

“They’re convinced, first of all, that Donald Trump is going to lose and that they’re probably going to lose the Senate. Either one of which would be fatal to getting their nominee through.”

In 2016, President Obama also had the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice in the months before a presidential election, but Republicans refused to allow it. Now the situation is reversed, O’Neil said.

O’Neil said he has been watching the polls since the beginning of the year and does not think this rush to fill the seat will affect President Trump’s numbers.

“People have made up their mind about this election,” he said. At this point, it’s exclusively about turnout.” In his opinion, turnout won’t be affected by this issue, as it was already likely to be very high.

Where Republicans traditionally are more focused on the Supreme Court, they now control the Supreme Court, which, O’Neil said, has been their objective for the last 40 years. “The outside group is always more motivated than the group that is in control,” he said.

Although he feels that voters have made up their minds in this election, he pointed out that no one is likely to stop campaigning. “If there is a tiny little sliver of a handful of votes somewhere, there’s always the chance that that sliver makes the difference between winning and losing.”

Mike O'Neil, Political Analyst, O'Neil Associates

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