Democrats accused Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, of hypocrisy on Tuesday after he said Republicans would confirm a justice to the Supreme Court if a seat opened up amid the election campaign in 2020, even after denying President Barack Obama a similar opportunity in 2016.

The senator made the remarks at a Chamber of Commerce event in Paducah, Ky., after an audience member asked what Senate Republicans would do if a Supreme Court justice died next year.



“Oh, we’d fill it,” he responded with a grin, prompting laughter from the audience.

When Mr. McConnell denied Judge Merrick B. Garland, Mr. Obama’s choice to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, a hearing in 2016, the senator cited election-year “tradition” going back to 1880 in keeping the seat open until a new president could be inaugurated.

Mr. McConnell’s remark on Tuesday made it clear that was not his only consideration. It was the most direct acknowledgment yet that Senate Republicans would treat a judge nominated by a Republican president differently from one nominated by a Democratic president.