Ginsburg, a champion of women's rights who became an icon for American liberals, died at her home in Washington of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said in a statement. She was surrounded by her family, it said.
McConnell's stance is a dramatic reversal from the position he took in a similar situation four years ago, when he refused to act on Democratic President Barack Obama's election-year nomination of centrist appeals court judge Merrick Garland to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016. Some Democrats accused McConnell and his fellow Republicans of"stealing" a Supreme Court seat.
"There is no doubt - let me be clear - that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider," Biden told reporters in Delaware. Ginsburg, who rose from a working class upbringing in New York City's borough of Brooklyn and prevailed over systemic sexism in the legal ranks to become one of America's best-known jurists, was appointed to the Supreme Court by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993. She provided key votes in landmark rulings securing equal rights for women, expanding gay rights and safeguarding abortion rights.
Trump on September 9 unveiled a list of potential nominees to fill any future Supreme Court vacancies in a move aimed at bolstering support among conservative voters.