Public backs most Supreme Court rulings while overall approval remains under 50%

A Marquette poll shows a deep partisan divide about the court itself but majority support for decisions ranging from cell phone privacy to birthright citizenship.(CN) — Public approval of the U.S. Supreme Court remains below 50% for the eighth consecutive month, a Marquette Law School Poll released Thursday found, even as majorities of Americans support the outcomes in 11 of 13 major decisions from the just-completed term.Forty-seven percent of adults approve of the way the court is handling its job and 53% disapprove, according to the national survey of 1,076 adults conducted July 22-29. Approval has hovered under 50% since November 2025 after sitting above that mark for much of the first half of last year, including a high of 54% in March 2025.The partisan gap is wide. Seventy-four percent of Republicans approve of the court, compared with 35% of independents and 22% of Democrats. Republican approval has drifted downward from 84% in February 2025. Independent approval has fallen from 46% over the same period. Democratic approval has stayed in the low 20s for most of the past year.Those numbers track closely with views of President Donald Trump. Among Republicans who approve of Trump’s job performance, 82% also approve of the court. Among Republicans who disapprove of Trump, court approval drops to 43%.A majority of the public, 55%, still says the court rules for the Trump administration often or fairly often, though that figure is down from 61% in May after the term ended with several high-profile losses for the administration. Republicans are more likely to say the court rarely or never sides with Trump (63%). Seventy-seven percent of Democrats say the opposite.Fifty-four percent of adults believe the justices are going out of their way to avoid a ruling that Trump might refuse to obey. Fifty-eight percent say the justices are motivated mainly by politics rather than the law, up six points from May.The survey also measured attitudes toward the balance of power between the president and Congress. A plurality, 45%, wants the next president to have less control over federal departments and agencies than today. Thirty-six percent prefer the current level of control and 18% want more. Democrats strongly favor less control (72%). Sixty-nine percent of adults say Congress has given up too many powers to the executive branch over the past 25 years. Fifty-eight percent believe Congress can reclaim some of that authority. Seventy-three percent say the next president should be less able to make policy without congressional authorization.Public attention to the court remains modest. Twenty-eight percent said they had heard a lot about the court in the previous month. Among specific June rulings, the decision upholding birthright citizenship drew the most notice (40% heard a lot), followed closely by the ruling allowing states to limit transgender athletes in women’s and girls’ sports (37%). Far fewer had heard a lot about the decisions on counting late-arriving absentee ballots (21%) or the president’s power to remove heads of independent agencies (20%).Despite limited day-to-day attention, majorities favored the court’s outcome in 11 of the 13 decisions tested. The strongest support came for limiting police access to cell phone location data (81% favor). Other popular rulings included the decision that the president may not remove a Federal Reserve governor (70%), the rejection of Trump’s appeal of the $5 million E. Jean Carroll verdict (66%), the ruling that Trump may not impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (66%), and the decision allowing states to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports teams (65%). The court also received majority support for upholding birthright citizenship (63%) and allowing the counting of late-arriving ballots (62%).Narrow majorities opposed two rulings: the decision allowing the president to remove heads of independent agencies (51% oppose) and the decision permitting political parties to coordinate spending with candidate campaigns (53% oppose).Partisan gaps appear in several Trump-related cases. Large majorities of Republicans favored the asylum restrictions and the agency-removal power. Large majorities of Democrats favored the rulings against the administration on birthright citizenship, tariffs and the Federal Reserve.Many of the justices themselves remain relatively unknown. Between 41% and 69% of adults said they had not heard enough to form an opinion of individual members of the court. The best-known justices still draw mixed or net-negative ratings overall.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads