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 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.
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