NEW POLL: Black Voter Enthusiasm Surges By 12 Points After Biden Nominates Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court

President Joe Biden and the Democrats appear to be benefiting greatly from Biden’s selection of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, according to a new poll.

Respondents to a February Morning Consult poll were asked “Thinking about the November 2022 midterm elections for U.S. Congress, how enthusiastic would you say you are about voting in the midterm elections?”

Just 37 percent of Black respondents said they were “extremely” or “very” enthusiastic about voting in the midterm elections.

But a lot has happened since then. A few days after that poll was taken, the White House officially announced that President Biden would be nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, fulfilling Biden’s pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.

Later that day, Feb. 26, the president and Judge Jackson spoke to the nation about the historic pick.

In the first Morning Consult poll since the announcement, enthusiasm among Black voters has surged, and so has Biden’s standing with that key constituency. Morning Consult’s Eli Yokley notes several key findings from the poll:

About half of Black voters (49 percent) are “extremely” or “very” enthusiastic about voting in the midterm elections, up 12 percentage points since a survey conducted before Biden rolled out his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, on Feb. 25.

Sixty-nine percent of Black voters approve of Biden’s job performance, including 32 percent who do so strongly – up 7 points since before Jackson’s nomination.

In the latest survey, Democratic voters are slightly more likely than Republican voters to express excitement about participating in the November contests, 55 percent to 53 percent, in a rarity compared with other surveys conducted this year.

Despite the president’s gains in job approval, congressional Democrats only have a narrow advantage, 43 percent to 41 percent, over their Republican counterparts on the generic ballot, roughly in line with their average monthly standing since November.

The surge comes as Biden seems to be experiencing the beginnings of a broader job approval comeback that may also be fueled by events like the Ukraine conflict and the waning of the Covid pandemic.

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