ATLANTA — Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have expressed their outrage at Republican threats to block President Barack Obama's choice to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. It's a matter of grave importance, they tell voters on the campaign trail, a reminder of the high stakes of the presidential election.

That's where the similarities end.


For Clinton, the opening on the court has provided a chance to aggressively talk about abortion rights, immigration reform and voting rights — issues that rile up her base and closely align her with the sitting president.

For Sanders, however, it's primarily a question of partisan obstructionism — and his standard go-to issue: campaign finance reform and 2010's Citizens United v. FEC decision.

It's a difference in approaches that underscores the candidates' divergent political imperatives and constituencies.

Clinton, with deep support from Hispanic voters and the full weight of abortion rights groups behind her, reminds those blocs of their uncertain futures by singling out individual cases that could directly affect them. Sanders, hewing closely to his standard stump speech, advances his own cause by doubling down on his core message of combating wealth inequality and systemic injustice.

The first opportunity to weigh in on the matter came just hours after Scalia’s death on Saturday, and they both predictably came down hard on Republicans in dueling speeches to a Colorado Democratic Party fundraising dinner in Denver, excoriating GOP leaders for their vows not to fill the slot until 2017.

Speaking to a crowd of over 12,000 partisans, Clinton led off with an extended, emotional riff that returned to her recent campaign theme of tightly embracing Obama — who remains popular with the party rank and file.

“Let me just make one point: Barack Obama is president of the United States until Jan. 20th, 2017. That is a fact, my friends, whether the Republicans like it or not. Elections have consequences. The president has a responsibility to nominate a new justice, and the Senate has a responsibility to vote. And all of us Democrats, we have a responsibility to make sure a Republican doesn’t win in November and rip away all the progress we’ve made together,” she said before delving into a history lesson about previous confirmation timelines.

The front-runner had grown agitated before going on stage when an aide told her that, on a Republican debate stage across the country, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump were urging the Senate to hold off on considering any Obama pick until a new president takes over.

“As a presidential candidate, a former law professor, a recovering lawyer, and, frankly, a citizen, to hear comments like those of Leader Mitch McConnell this evening is very disappointing. It is totally out of step with our history and our constitutional principles,” she added.

Sanders’ version was shorter, more precise and tacked atop a version of his standard campaign address.

“It appears that some of my Republican colleagues in the Senate have a very interesting view of the Constitution of the United States, and apparently they believe that the Constitution does not allow a Democratic president to bring forth a nominee to replace Justice Scalia. I strongly disagree with that. And I very much hope that President Obama will bring forth a strong nominee, and that we can get that nominee confirmed as soon as possible,” he said. “The Supreme Court of the United States has nine members, not eight. We need that ninth member. A lot of important issues coming up."

When asked twice about the court on CBS’ "Face the Nation" on Sunday, for example, Sanders did not grab the chance to detail the policy rationale for why filling Scalia’s seat is important, choosing instead to focus on “absurd” Republican “obstructionism.”

“We cannot allow the Republican majority in the Senate to deny the president his basic constitutional right,” he told CBS. “There are very important cases that need to be heard that are not going to be determined if we do not have a ninth member of the Supreme Court."

His complaint was about political posturing and a broken system, not individual cases — an extension of his central argument against structural flaws and institutional faults, a focus that has powered his campaign to unexpected heights.

It’s a tactical choice rather than a sign of the inflexibility of his message: Sanders, for example, has added a new passage to his rarely changing stump speech in recent days — a handful of heart-rending lines on the water contamination emergency in Flint, Michigan.

His narrow framing on the Supreme Court vacancy was on full display at a campaign stop at the University of South Carolina in Columbia early Tuesday afternoon.

“I will do everything I can to turn over this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. In my view, democracy is ‘one person, one vote.’ Not billionaires buying elections,” he said, reciting familiar phrases.

That’s a far cry from Clinton’s targeted appeals, which have relied on publicizing the stakes of individual cases facing the court — thereby energizing key groups that she’ll need by her side in the coming primary contests.

Speaking in a largely Latino neighborhood in East Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday, for example, Clinton said the election “got even more important yesterday because of the death of Supreme Court Justice Scalia."

“In the Supreme Court, because of his passing, there will most likely be a tie, four-to-four, on important issues that affect so many people in our country. And the most important is the decision about President Obama’s actions" under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans programs, she told the crowd. “In the case of the decision regarding DACA and DAPA, if there is no new justice appointed, then as with other cases before the court, the decision that was decided will stay in place. And that was a bad decision, I disagreed with it, I don’t think it was the right legal interpretation, I believe President Obama had the authority to do what he did."

In a tweet-storm on the topic of the Supreme Court late Monday night, Clinton also specifically singled out a voting rights case and an abortion rights case, on top of the immigration one.

And, if the targeted messaging wasn’t clear enough, Clinton echoed it earlier that day, at an event billed as a “Women’s Health Meeting."

“We’re going to continue to push,” she told the Reno, Nevada, crowd, “because some of the decisions in the court awaiting final review have to do with the very restrictive regulations put on Planned Parenthood and access to safe and legal abortion in Texas, having to do with workers’ rights, having to do with voting rights, having to do with very fundamental concerns."

Annie Karni contributed to this report from New York.