Gophopes fight to pick newjustice boosts Trump

WASHINGTON — Republicans are shifting their campaign focus toward the looming Supreme Court fight over replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in hopes that it will inject a last-minute boost into President Donald Trump's reelection bid and the battle for the Senate majority.

But some in Trump's orbit arequestioning that strategy, privately fretting that the move to quickly confirm a conservative replacement for the liberal icon will backfire and energize the left in key battlegrounds states.

Among some of the president's advisers, jitters stem from a recent internal Republican poll discussed among officials in the White House and the Trump campaign this week that contained an alarming range of signs about the vacancy, according to people who reviewed it.

Thepoll— conductedover the weekend among about 1,500 likely voters in17 swing states, including Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — showed that 51 percent of voters said they trust Joe Biden more than Trump to handle the vacancy, while only 43 percent said they trusted Trump.

The document also showed that only 28 percent of the voters said theywould be more likely to vote for Trump if a replacement is confirmed, while 38 percent said theywould be less likely.

And 52 percent said the Senate should hold hearings after the election, while 41 percent said it should hold hearings before the election.

Democrats argue that the renewed interest has bolstered their own fundraising, pointing to the more than $200 million that ActBlue, the party's online fundraising platform for small-dollar donations, has raised since Ginsburg's death Friday.

Trump told advisers in conversationsover theweekend that the Supreme Court fightwas a boost for his presidential campaign and that he wanted to name a nominee quickly.

“I think it's better if you go before the election,” Trump saidwednesday at the White House, adding that he thought confirmation would “be fairly quick.”