Poll: Sotomayor a good Supreme Court pick

PRINCETON, N.J., May 28 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama made a good decision in nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, a poll indicates.

Sotomayor, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, was nominated this week to replace Justice David Souter, who is retiring from the high court this summer.

A Gallup poll found that 19 percent of respondents said Sotomayor, 54, was an "excellent" choice, 28 percent said she was a "good" choice, 20 percent said she was a "fair" choice, and 13 percent said she was a "poor" pick.

Democrats were more favorable than Republicans to Sotomayor, Gallup noted. By gender, 54 percent of women gave high marks to Sotomayor, while only 42 percent of men did so.

"Much of the discussion about Obama's nomination decision has focused on his clear intent to appoint a woman, given the fact that there is currently only one female justice on the court," Gallup said in its analysis. "Still, it appears Americans believe that Sotomayor's intellectual credentials and experience were more important to Obama in his decision to nominate her than were her demographic characteristics."

The poll was conducted Tuesday night. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Sotomayor was nominated in 1991 by Republican President George H. W. Bush to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In 1997, Democratic President Bill Clinton nominated her to the appeals court post she currently holds.