The percentage of people who approve of the Supreme Court’s work is ascending again, according to a new Marquette Law School poll, which shows Democrats who previously lost trust in the justices are slowly regaining confidence despite an overall majority of respondents who still lack faith in the institution.
The poll, conducted from Jan. 9-20 among roughly 1,000 respondents, found that 47% of those surveyed approve of the high court, while a 53% majority disapproves. The new data picks up on a trend that began back in November, when 44% of respondents said they approved, which was considerably higher than the 38% approval the high court held in July, just after the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision allowed states to create laws severely restricting abortion access.
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Increased approval in the court was largely due to a vast change in Democratic responses from July when just 15% of the party said they approved of the court’s work. Now, roughly 35% of Democrats show approval. Marquette first began tracking high court approval in September 2020, when around 66% of total respondents approved of the court’s work.
Details from the latest poll suggest that while approval of the court’s work is slowly rising, a majority of respondents still lack trust in the institution, as just 31% reported having “quite a lot” of confidence in the court, up from 28% in July.
It’s not immediately clear why approval in the court is slowly ascending, as the justices have not made any major decisions since last term. Monday marked the first decisions handed back in cases heard last fall, which included one unanimous ruling against a disabled veteran who asked if he could claim retroactive disability benefits.
Marquette polling was also conducted ahead of the Supreme Court’s announcement last week that revealed it had still not been able to find the person responsible for leaking the draft opinion of Dobbs, along with a subsequent indication that justices themselves were not heavily scrutinized as part of the investigation.
Adam Feldman, founder of the Empirical SCOTUS blog, told the Washington Examiner on Jan. 20 that although the high court appeared to be suffering from historically low approval, the court is often looked at as much more reputable than Congress or the president.
“The public is very trusting of the Supreme Court,” Feldman contended, adding that “even if there are these short dips that we haven’t ever seen in the history of the polling since the 60s, we haven’t seen a dip where there has been longer term ramifications for the court. And this kind of fits within that same narrative.”
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One of the most anticipated decisions to come this term is the fate of affirmative action, as numerous legal experts predict the 6-3 conservative majority court led by Chief Justice John Roberts will likely vote to disallow race-based admissions policies for universities.
The poll found that 49% of respondents had not heard enough to form an opinion on the affirmative action cases. However, 68% said they favored race as a factor in admissions, versus 32% who opposed affirmative action.
