New Poll Suggests Most Americans Don't Care Whether Merrick Garland is Confirmed to the Supreme Court

NEW YORK, April 19, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new national poll by iMediaEthics shows that only about a third of Americans have a strong opinion either way on whether President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, is confirmed, while a clear majority admit they have no opinion on the matter at all.

This lack of engagement is found across the political spectrum, with large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents unsure whether Garland should be confirmed.

Among those with opinions, Democrats are more likely to want Garland confirmed (35% for confirmation, 9% against) than are Republicans (only 7% for confirmation, 28% against), while independents are almost evenly divided (12% for, 11% against).

These results seem to contradict the findings of other polls on the issue, including those by Gallup, Pew, CNN/ORC and Quinnipiac. However, these polling organizations used forced-choice questions to pressure respondents to express an opinion, whether or not they had given the matter much thought.

The new iMediaEthics' poll, published April 18, was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, and is part of the iMediaEthics PollCheck project, which is designed to test poll findings that appear to present unrealistic views of the American public on policy matters.

The iMediaEthics' PollCheck project is funded by the Donna and Perry Golkin Foundation.

David W. Moore is a senior fellow with the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, and is polling director for the media ethics news website, iMediaEthics.org. He is a former vice president of the Gallup Organization, and author of The Opinion Makers and The Super Pollsters.

iMediaEthics is published by Art Science Research Laboratory, a not-for-profit co-founded by its director, Rhonda Roland Shearer, an artist, art historian and award winning journalist, and her late husband, Harvard professor and scientist Stephen Jay Gould. ASRL promotes the media's use of scientific methods and experts before publication.

SOURCE iMediaEthics

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