Public support for SCOTUS slips in Trump's second term

WASHINGTON (CN) — Too often out of sight and mind, public opinion of the Supreme Court is being infected by the partisanship and polarization plaguing American politics, according to a new poll out Thursday.

Approval of the court is on a downward slope based on a Marquette Law School Poll national survey, with only 43% of respondents giving the justices high marks. The survey found that Americans rarely pay attention to the court, but when they do, partisan politics takes over.

As opinions of President Donald Trump have soured over his second term, so has the public's opinion of the court. In March 2025, approval of how the Supreme Court was handling its job was at 54% but dropped by over 10% as the justices routinely ruled to uphold the administration's policies.

Over the last year, Trump has flooded the Supreme Court's emergency docket with appeals as lower courts moved to stymie the administration's policies. Legal experts warned that endorsing Trump's wishes, even temporarily, would embolden the president and lead to an endless cycle of rushed and incomplete rulings.

By the fall, the White House was boasting about victories on a slew of issues including a transgender military ban, deportations, DEI funding cuts, mass firings and more.

But in the new year, the Supreme Court handed the administration a major loss, striking down Trump's one-man tariff war. The president has since attacked the court and individual justices over the decision.

On Tuesday evening, Trump complained about the resulting refunds the government must pay to businesses and attacked his own appointees — Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — for ruling against him.

"I put certain people on the United States Supreme Court who totally misrepresented who they were, and the true ideology for which they stand!" Trump wrote on his social media site.

But Thursday's poll shows a majority of Americans have a favorable view of the Supreme Court's tariff decision, and only 33% of respondents opposed the ruling. Democrats expressed the most approval at 92%, but 73% of independents also favored the ruling. In contrast, 61% of Republicans were opposed.

According to the survey, the more Americans heard or read about the decision, the more partisan their views became. Republicans with little knowledge of the ruling were evenly divided, but those with a lot of knowledge were 70% opposed. The same trend in reverse played out with independents, with the knowledge group favoring the ruling by 90% but only 69% of the lacking knowledge group approving.

Democrats were the outlier, with little change in approval for the decision from the spectrum of news consumers.

Overall, the public is largely in the dark about the Supreme Court's work, with only 26% reporting hearing or reading a lot about it in the last month.

The survey tied partisan opinions of Trump's tariffs to approval of the Supreme Court's ruling. Over 70% of tariff fans also disliked the ruling, while only 11% of tariff opponents opposed the decision.

Some court watchers attributed Trump's shadow docket wins as the justices' attempt to avoid the constitutional crisis scenario in which the president refuses to follow a Supreme Court ruling. Even after the Supreme Court's tariff decision, the public still believes the court is going out of its way to avoid such a conflict, with 57% of respondents supporting this view.

Opinions on the court's conflict avoidance fall along similar breakdowns as the tariff ruling, with Democrats and independents largely believing that the justices are taking caution while Republicans do not.

Most legal experts predict that Trump will face another big Supreme Court loss on birthright citizenship. Even the president himself anticipates this outcome.

"Their Tariff decision was an unnecessary and expensive slap in the face to the U.S.A., and a giant victory for its opponents," Trump wrote in another post on Wednesday. "If they rule against our Country on Birthright Citizenship, which they probably will, it will be even worse, if that's possible. It will cost America massive amounts of money but, more importantly, it will cost America its DIGNITY! No, the Radical Left Democrats don't need to 'Pack the Court,' it's already Packed!"

According to the survey, a majority would support that outcome, with 69% noting their approval. Republicans are divided over Trump's executive order targeting birthright citizenship, but independents and Democrats largely oppose it.

Trump's attempt to fire Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook elicited similar partisan approvals. Survey respondents were split, however, on how the justices should rule on mail-in ballot deadlines despite polarized political views on the issue.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue rulings on birthright citizenship, Cook's firing and mail-in ballots in the coming months.