So Gallup did a poll of people’s initial views of Sonia Sotomayor and compared them to people’s initial views of other recent SCOTUS nominees. The conclusion, she’s less popular than Roberts but more popular than Alito:
That’s pretty straightforward. But over at the innumerate Weekly Standard they think a good way to do the comparison is to compare the ratings Sotomayor gets in a Rasmussen poll (49-36) to the numbers Alito got from Gallup (44-19) even though the questions were worded different. The 2005 Gallup report on Alito also includes the interesting tidbit that the only way to get the public to approve of conservative justices is to dissemble about their philosophy:
The public is evenly divided as to whether Alito probably would or would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Thirty-eight percent believe he would, and an equal percentage think he would not, with the rest offering no opinion. If it becomes clear Alito would vote to reverse Roe v. Wade, Americans would not want the Senate to confirm him, by 53% to 37%.
I think it’s pretty clear to anyone who’s paying attention that all of the organizations backing Alito were doing so under the impression that he would, in fact, vote to overturn Roe.
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