5 women on Trump’s SCOTUS shortlist
Following the death of longtime U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump is expected to announce his nomination for her replacement later this week.
At a rally in North Carolina over the weekend, Trump announced that the replacement for Ginsburg would be a woman.
Ginsburg, long seen as the anchor of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, died Friday at the age of 87. Her death came just 46 days before the hotly contested 2020 United States presidential election, where Trump had already raised control of the courts as a major campaign issue.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Two weeks ago, Trump updated his list of potential Supreme Court nominees that he first released after he became the presumptive Republican nominee for president in 2016.
Exit polling of the 2016 presidential election showed that those who viewed Supreme Court appointments as “the most important factor” in their vote favored Trump by a 15-percentage-point margin over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Over the objections of Democrats, Trump has announced that he plans to nominate a replacement for Ginsburg before the end of the week, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. has indicated that he plans to give Trump’s nominee hearings and a floor vote.
Despite Republicans’ 53-47 edge in the Senate, it remains to be seen whether they will have enough votes to confirm a nominee so close to the election as two Republican senators have said they believe the winner of the 2020 election should decide the next Supreme Court nominee.
The following pages contain important things to know about the top contenders on President Trump’s updated Supreme Court shortlist.
