Public perception of the U.S. Supreme Court has crept back up since bottoming out last year when the court eliminated constitutional abortion rights, according to a new Marquette Law School poll.
The poll found that 47% of people approved of the court, up from 38% just after the June 24, 2021, Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, but still well below the 66% approval mark in September 2020. The survey showed a deep partisan divide, with 67% of Republicans approving and only 35% of Democrats.
It was among Democrats that support rose the most, up from 15% in July.
The survey offered hints of future shifts in public opinion as the conservative-dominated Supreme Court tackles a series of divisive cases in its current term. The justices are considering abolishing the use of race as a factor in university admissions, a ruling that people with an opinion say they would support 68% to 32%.
But the public may be less supportive should the court say that a Colorado website designer has a free-speech right to create wedding pages only for opposite-sex couples. Asked whether they would support a ruling letting business owners refuse some services to LGBTQ people, 57% of people with an opinion said no.
The poll was conducted Jan. 9-20, largely before the court’s Jan. 19 announcement that an internal investigation had failed to identify the culprit in last year’s leak of the draft majority opinion in the abortion case. The poll had a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.
