For months, Democrats touted the GOP’s Supreme Court blockade as a major political liability that would help turn the Senate majority in their favor. But for all their tough talk, Merrick Garland has basically disappeared from the Senate campaign trail.

The air wars over Garland have largely gone silent, with no Senate Democratic candidates having run television ads invoking the unprecedented Republican blockade of Garland. And some Senate Republicans have actually turned the tables, using the court to motivate their own base.


After plowing hundreds of thousands of dollars into Supreme Court-themed advertisements in the spring, well-financed outside groups propping up Senate Democrats have also long stopped doing TV buys calling out Republicans for obstructing Garland’s nomination — now numbering 176 days and counting.

Of the two dozen Senate Democrats and candidates vying to join them who appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, none mentioned Garland nor the current Republican obstruction of his nomination, according to a review of prepared remarks. And activists appear to have staged only one Supreme Court push over the seven-week recess, when local protesters spanned out over eight states on a “day of action” Aug. 31 to stage demonstrations at the offices of GOP senators.

“Chuck Schumer was almost gleeful, exuberant at first because he thought he had a winning issue,” said Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I think the American people are comfortable with the idea of allowing the electorate to speak in November about the direction of the court. And that being the case, as a campaign issue, I think it’s a wash.”

Confident predictions from top Senate Democrats that Republicans would eventually crack have largely failed to materialize, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and nearly all of his ranks have refused to budge from their view that deceased Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat should be filled no earlier than 2017.

From Pennsylvania to New Hampshire to Arizona, Senate Democratic candidates repeatedly hammered Senate Republicans for essentially ignoring Garland’s nomination with a “Do Your Job” message they figured would resonate with swing voters. During well-publicized recess events, activists hounded GOP senators back in their home states.

But now — at least according to Republicans — radio silence.

“I heard almost nothing about it,” said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, who is in an unexpectedly tough reelection bid against Democrat Jason Kander. “I saw thousands of people. We did 106 events that involved lots of people and I think in passing, one person mentioned Merrick Garland.”

In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has actually flipped the script by touting his effort — if a bit opaquely — to block the Supreme Court from tilting to the left in a web ad released last month with footage of Johnson at a shooting range. Johnson is fighting an uphill reelection bid against Democrat Russ Feingold, a former senator.

“One more liberal justice will flip the court,” a gun-toting Johnson says in a cheeky reference to the current court blockade. “I held firm defending the Second Amendment, and will continue to do so.”

Republicans say there are several reasons they haven’t suffered politically because of Garland, but namely it’s because the Supreme Court is a base-motivating issue that doesn’t move independent voters.

“The idea that voters were going to make a Supreme Court vacancy a more important issue in a Senate race than say jobs or health care was ludicrous the day it was hatched,” said GOP strategist Scott Jennings, who ran a super PAC backing McConnell in 2014. “I think the issue has energized Republicans, actually, and reminded them what an active, conservative Senate majority really means for upholding our party’s values.”

The air wars over Merrick Garland have largely gone silent | Getty

Republican strategists also think the court is a way to motivate and persuade conservative-leaning voters who may be turned off by Donald Trump. Not longer after Garland’s appointment, the National Republican Senatorial Committee released a video noting it’s “extremely likely we could have three more vacancies over the next four years.” The video also featured a voter suggesting Hillary Clinton should nominate Barack Obama to the court. Trump was never mentioned. If Republicans ever do decided to focus all their resources down ballot, expect the court to be a major messaging theme.

And unlike Republican base voters, Democrats are plenty motivated to turn out.

“The court is used as an organizing and persuasion issue for our constituency groups,” said Martha McKenna, who ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure arm in 2012 and 2014. “It speaks to women about Roe [vs. Wade]. It speaks to minorities about civil rights. But those groups are already mobilized by Donald Trump.”

Democratic strategists still insist it’s an effective issue, even if they aren’t putting money behind the effort. Groups focused on specific parts of the Democratic electorate — EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and End Citizens United — are likely to remind their voters of it in mail or digital ads before Nov. 8. And national Democrats believe it will be a popular debate talking point as candidates try to portray GOP incumbents as part of a broken D.C. system.

The Senate race where the Supreme Court may resonate the most is in Iowa, where Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley has been under heavy scrutiny for his starring role in the Garland blockade. Democrat Patty Judge got into the race primarily over the Supreme Court fight and attracted immediate attention, helped in part by her made-for-bumper sticker last name.

But when Judge unveiled her first two general election television ads last month, neither mentioned the Supreme Court, nor Grassley’s role in leaving a current court seat vacant.

And the Supreme Court controversy doesn’t seem to have done much to dent Grassley politically. He is still heavily favored to defeat Judge; the Real Clear Politics polling average has Grassley up by 7.7 points. Democrats are trying to insist Grassley is running scared, noting he’s airing a negative television ad for the first time in nearly two decades.

“I think it’s [an issue] in my race but I don’t think in very many other races,” Grassley said of the Supreme Court.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat Katie McGinty released a web ad shortly after Scalia’s Feb. 13 death charging that GOP Sen. Pat Toomey "wants a Supreme Court that will overturn choice for women."

But McGinty’s paid advertising now focuses on other issues, and McGinty didn’t mention the Supreme Court nor Toomey’s role in the blockade when she had the national spotlight during her remarks at the Democratic National Convention in July.

Beyond Grassley, Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire is the other Republican senator hit initially hard by political opponents over the Senate Republican blockade.

End Citizens United, a political action committee focused on campaign finance reform, ran a $425,000 ad buy in late March and early April, taunting Ayotte over the Supreme Court. And Senate Majority PAC, the main super PAC that works to elect Democrats to the Senate, ran two television ad campaigns totaling about $1 million against Ayotte during the same time period.

But now, Ayotte — who is locked in one of the closest Senate races nationwide against Democrat Maggie Hassan — says it’s not a topic that is coming up often back home in New Hampshire.

“I hear about many other issues more than I hear about that,” Ayotte, who met privately with the veteran jurist earlier this year, said of Garland.

That doesn’t mean Democrats aren’t trying to remind Republicans of the Supreme Court. This week, Democrats launched an all-out public relations blitz to promote Garland the first week after lawmakers returned to Washington, bringing in Vice President Joe Biden and even the nominee himself to the Hill to put Garland back in the headlines. They also released yet another round of polling showing voters think Garland deserves full consideration, although previous polls have fallen on deaf GOP ears.

But there’s little sign that the Republican resistance will change this year — even after the election.

“It tells you that the resistance to filling this vacancy and resistance to Garland is grounded in special interest groups that still have a powerful impact on the Republican conference — Wall Street banks, corporate interests, Koch brothers,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “They are scared to death of an independent on the Supreme Court who won’t rule their way.”

