A majority of Americans support Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson being confirmed to the nation's highest court, with 58% saying the Senate should vote in favor of her nomination, according to a new Gallup poll taken in the weeks ahead of the confirmation hearings.

Almost one-third of respondents, 30%, said the Senate should not vote in favor of confirming her; an additional 12% had no opinion.

The poll was released Wednesday morning as the Senate Judiciary Committee continues to hold confirmation hearings for Jackson.

The new poll finds 88% of Democrats, 55% of independents, and 31% of Republicans saying the Senate should vote to confirm Jackson. The majority of Republicans, 55%, are opposed, according to a Gallup article.

Only current Chief Justice John Roberts, at 59% in 2005, had a similar level of support at this stage. Most other nominees had support in the low 50% range, with five below that mark, according to Gallup.

For Wednesday's poll results, Gallup surveyed 1,017 U.S. adults from March 1-18, using live telephone interviewers to contact both landlines and cellphones. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Jackson Brown was chosen in late February by President Joe Biden to fill the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring. Biden had made a campaign promise to select a Black woman to the Supreme Court.

Jackson Brown has served as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2021. She was educated at Harvard University and has a respected record as a federal judge.

Judge Jackson, who was born in 1970, has credited each success to her roots as a Black woman, according to The New York Times. Her parents chose Ketanji Onyika, meaning "lovely one," from a list of names sent by an aunt who was serving in the Peace Corps in West Africa.

For their part, Republicans say that she is soft on crime, The Washington Post reported. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., the first GOP questioner in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, asked Jackson if being "a kind person" had adversely influenced her sentencing decisions as a federal trial judge. Jackson said she operated within the parameters of laws passed by Congress and emphasized she had handed down tough sentences, The Post reported.

Many Democrats have already expressed their support for Jackson, and the Senate led by Democrats can confirm her without a single Republican vote due to the simple majority threshold for Supreme Court nominations in the upper chamber, The Washington Post observed.

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