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Supreme Court

New Survey Data on Public Perceptions of the Supreme Court

A detailed Marquette Law School poll finds public views of the Court are modestly negative, but most major recent decisions enjoy majority public support.

Ilya Somin | 8.8.2026 5:28 PM

The Supreme Court justices. (Pool/ABACA/Newscom)

Back in May, I wrote about survey data indicating a modest boost in the Supreme Court's popularity with the public, possibly caused by its February decision in the tariff case (which I helped litigate). Since then, the Supreme Court has issued its major decisions in a large number of cases, including those on birthright citizenship, the Second Amendment, executive removal power, and more. Recently, Marquette Law School came out with a new poll assessing public perceptions of the Court in the wake of those rulings. It finds that the Court as a whole remains modestly unpopular (47% approve, 53% disapprove), but that most of its major recent decisions have majority public support. The Court also remains a bit more popular than just before the tariff ruling, and much more popular than the other two branches of government. There are other interesting findings, as well, including on perceptions of individual justices (about which most of the public is generally ignorant).

As discussed below, the Marquette survey has a few unfortunate methodological problems. But it nonetheless provides some useful information about public perceptions of the Court.

Before going on, I will emphasize, yet again, that the Court's popularity (or lack thereof) says little about the quality of its decisions. Survey data consistently shows that most Americans know very little about the Constitution and the Court's work, and a majority of the public cannot even name one Supreme Court justice and know little about them (the Marquette poll further confirms this latter point). I also do not claim that majority public support for decisions I like (including the tariff ruling!) "proves" those decisions are correct. It does not. But, for reasons to be discussed below, public opinion about the Court does matter, in so far as it is important to protecting the institution of judicial review against potential attacks from both the right and the left. It may also be of interest to students of the Court and students of public opinion (I happen to be both).

The Court's 47% approval rating is slightly higher than the 44% it got in the same poll in mid to late 2025, and about the same as the 46% it got in May (after the tariff case, but before the other rulings). An April Marquette poll showed 42% approval. This is consistent with other survey data indicating a slight improvement in early 2026, possibly driven by the tariff decision. Though the Marquette poll shows more stability than some of the others, and fluctuations between 42 and 47 could just be due to random variation.

The Court also remains much more popular (or, rather, much less unpopular) than the other two branches of government. The Marquette survey finds........

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