Supreme Court’s Approval Rate Plunges Amid Abortion Debate, Poll Finds

Topline

The U.S. Supreme Court’s approval rating plummeted by more than 10 percentage points since July after the court came out with controversial rulings on abortion, immigration and the eviction moratorium, a new Marquette University Law School poll finds, as a growing share of Americans believe the conservative-leaning court rules based on politics.

The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, DC.

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Key Facts

The poll, conducted September 7-16 among 1,411 U.S. adults, found support for the court has dropped to 49%, down from 60% in July and 66% in September 2020.

That drop was driven mainly by Democrats and Independents—whose support plunged from 59% to 37% and from 61% to 51%, respectively—while Republicans’ approval of the court actually went up from 57% to 61%.

While a minority of 39% believe the court’s decisions are based mainly on politics and not the law (61% believe based on the law), that share is the highest that Marquette has recorded thus far, up from 29% in July, 37% in September 2020 and 35% in September 2019.

An 84% majority believe the court should not decide cases based on the positions political parties have taken on them and 59% believe the court should ignore public opinion of a case when deciding it—although a small minority of Democrats, 54%, believe justices should take it into account.

Americans are nearly evenly divided on whether more justices should be added to the court—as some Democrats have pushed for to combat its conservative tilt—with 48% favoring it and 51% disapproving, which is unchanged from July.

A 72% majority believes there should be term limits for justices, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Contra

Even as Americans’ support for the Supreme Court wanes, they still trust it more than any other branch of the federal government. A 58% majority say they trust the Supreme Court the most, while 25% said the presidency and 16% trust Congress. Democrats, however, trust the presidency the most—51% put their trust primarily in the White House—while in September 2020 Republicans favored the presidency the most, given that their party controlled it.

What To Watch For

The Supreme Court will take up several major cases in its next term that starts in October, most notably a challenge to Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban that could potentially overturn Roe v. Wade. The Marquette poll found only 20% support overturning Roe, which guaranteed the right to an abortion, while 50% oppose it, though a slight 40% plurality support upholding Mississippi’s 15-week ban while 34% want it overturned. The court will also take up cases on gun rights and the right to concealed carry, as well as whether public funding should be used to cover financial aid for religious schools. The poll found that a 44% plurality would support a Supreme Court ruling that found the Second Amendment “protects the right to carry a gun outside the home,” while a 34% plurality believe a state shouldn’t deny financial aid for religious schools.

Key Background

The Supreme Court poll comes after a string of contentious rulings by the conservative-leaning court in late August and early September, most recently when the court ruled 5-4 not to strike down Texas’ near-total ban on abortion on technical grounds, leaving the controversial law in effect. The court also struck down the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium and reinstated the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers to stay on the other side of the border while they wait for their cases to be heard. Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas have all responded to criticisms that the court is too “political” in recent weeks, insisting their decisions are based on the law and justices are not, as Barrett put it, “partisan hacks.” “When a judge puts on that robe, he’s not a junior-league politician,” Breyer said in a recent interview with the Washington Post, even as he acknowledged the court’s “connections with politics” mean that’s “a pretty hard message to get across.”

Crucial Quote

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette poll, told Bloomberg Wednesday he believed the court’s Texas abortion decision likely eroded Americans’ support for the court, particularly when combined with the eviction and “Remain in Mexico” rulings. “Whatever people might have seen as moderation on the court over the past year was followed by these three rulings right in a row and close together that all took a conservative tilt,” Franklin said.

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