Democrats hope voters’ motivation increases,

For decades, Republicans have been more effective than Democrats at marshalling judicial issues to galvanize their voters and win elections.

Will the political dynamic flip this year?

The Supreme Court vacancy created by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death Friday has jolted the 2020 election, refocusing an already turbulent campaign on a judicial opening that could cement a conservative majority on the nation’s high court for a generation.

It’s a high-stakes situation reminiscent of the 2016 race, when a vacancy caused by the death of Antonin Scalia — and the resulting battle over the court’s ideological majority — is widely believed to have benefited Donald Trump’s campaign.

But Democrats argue that this year’s opening presents fundamentally different stakes for their electoral base, calling attention to a set of viscerally important issues like health care and abortion rights that they hope put Trump and the GOP on shaky political footing.

“There’s no question this will be an inflection point that shatters the conventional thinking about who cares about the court and who shows up for them,” said Christopher Kang, co-founder and chief counsel for Demand Justice, a liberal group that focuses on the judiciary.

Kang said Demand Justice will spend $10 million on ads criticizing senators who want to push a Supreme Court nomination forward before the election, though he added the group has not yet decided which races it will target.

Polls indicate that, at least at the outset, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden carries a small advantage on who voters want to see appoint the next Supreme Court justice. A national Fox News poll released this month shows that 52% of likely voters trusted Biden over Trump to pick the next nominee, compared to 45% for Trump.

An August survey from the Pew Research Center, meanwhile, found 66% of Democrats say Supreme Court appointments are “very important” to their choice in the election, compared to 61% of Republicans.

In 2016, Pew reported a different dynamic, with 70% of Trump supporters saying an appointment was very important to them while 62% of Hillary Clinton supporters said so.

And a poll released Saturday from the Marquette University Law School found that among likely Biden voters in Wisconsin, 59% said the next court appointment was “very important” to them, compared to 51% for Trump supporters.

Officials with the Biden campaign also point out that the Supreme Court vacancy is likely to refocus attention on a GOP lawsuit the court was set to hear in November on whether the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. A fight over repealing the heath care law before the 2018 midterm election became the central message of Democratic candidates that year, with many arguing that the GOP wanted to do away with guarantees that Americans with pre-existing conditions could still receive health insurance.

“Voters understand the next justice who goes on the court will decide whether or not they will still have protections for pre-existing conditions,” said one Biden aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly about campaign strategy.

“That’s a fight that’s good for Democrats. It carried them to the House majority in 2018 and it is motivating voters in communities all over the country.”