A national poll found a small uptick in support for the U.S. Supreme Court following a landmark ruling that overturned the Roe vs Wade decision and other court rulings on access to abortion.
The poll, conducted by the Gallup Agency, was conducted between July 5th and the 26th, coming after a number of politically important rulings on abortion as well as environmental policy drew significant attention.
The Poll found that 43% of Americans approve of the Supreme Court. A number that was within the poll’s margin of error but did not note a decrease. In fact, the previous edition of the poll which was conducted in September 2021 found 40% approval for the Supreme Court.
That figure and the 2022 total are both historic lows for the Supreme Court’s approval rating since Gallup began the Poll in 2000.
The September 2021 poll found similar dissatisfaction between Republicans, Democrats, and Independents regarding the Supreme Court. The recent Poll found Republicans had improved their views of the Supreme Court to 74% (up from 45% in September), while Democrats have a historically low view of the Supreme Court, with only 13% of all Democrats in the poll approving the work of the Supreme Court — down from 36%. At the same time, political independents have largely been unchanged by the Poll (41% in September vs 40%) today.
For Republicans, the 74% approval rating is a historic high, close to the 76% of Democrats who approved of the court in a July 2015 Gallup poll.
The 2000 poll found a historic high of support for the Supreme Court. At the time 62% of Americans expressing satisfaction with the Supreme court. Following the Bush vs. Gore decision in December 2000, a Gallup Poll found a 3% dip in support for the court. That controversial ruling played a large roll in determining that George W. Bush would win the electoral votes from Florida and, with it, the U.S. Presidency. President George W. Bush won re-election in 2004.
The modest gain in approval comes as a number of key rulings from the nation’s highest court have drawn attention in recent months from the wider public. Many of these cases hindged on individual rights issues on everything from gun rights to mask mandates as well as a number of issues regarding the relationship between a state and an individual’s faith.
The greatest media attention has been regarding the landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24th which overturned the precedent set in the 1973 Roe vs. Wade case and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.
The most recent Poll also found a historic high of 55% of Americans disapproved of the court’s job—a 1% increase from the last time the Poll was conducted in September 2021.
The abortion ruling has become a political rallying cry for many Democrats and women’s rights activists ahead of the November 2022 congressional mid-term elections. Both Republicans and Democrats are expected to make the debate over abortion access a key feature of their campaigns.
Indeed, a poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal in August found that 60% of voters polled said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. An increase of 5% from a similar poll conducted in March.
