About one-third (31%) of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of how the U.S. Supreme Court is handling its job, according to the latest Economist / YouGov Survey, while 53% disapprove.
Almost all Democrats disapprove of the Supreme Court's job handling (12% approve and 79% disapprove), while most Republicans approve (63% vs. 26%). Republicans who say they're MAGA supporters overwhelmingly approve of the Supreme Court's job handling (73% vs. 19%), while non-MAGA Republicans are more closely divided (49% vs. 36%).
Only 9% of Americans say the political viewpoint of the U.S. Supreme Court is liberal, while 25% call it moderate and 45% say it's conservative. The share of Democrats who say the Supreme Court is conservative is twice as large as the share of Republicans who say that (68% vs. 34%).
Americans who closely follow the news are more likely than others to identify the Supreme Court as conservative. 57% of those who follow what's going on in government and public affairs most of the time say this, compared to 46% of those who follow the news some of the time and 26% of those who follow the news less often. The share who say the Supreme Court is liberal is similar in all three groups; people who follow the news less often are more likely to be unsure about the Supreme Court's ideology.
The 45% of Americans who say the Supreme Court is conservative is similar to the shares who have said that when Economist / YouGov Polls over the past several years have asked this question, and generally larger than the shares who said this in 2020 and 2021.
Americans are more likely to say the Supreme Court has given the president too much power than to say it has given too little power (45% vs. 7%), while 29% say the court has given the president about the right amount of power.
Most MAGA Republicans say the Supreme Court has given the president about the right amount of power (63%), while 20% of them say it has given the president too little power and almost none (3%) say it has given him too much. Among non-MAGA Republicans, 29% say the Supreme Court has given the president too much power, 47% say the right amount of power, and 4% say too little power.
Few Americans (11%) say the Supreme Court is biased against Trump, while 40% say it's biased in his favor and 24% say the court treats Trump fairly. Democrats are most likely to say the court has a pro-Trump bias (74%), while Republicans are most likely to say it's not biased (45%).
The Economist and YouGov asked a random 50% of respondents whether "presidents" should always obey Supreme Court orders, even if they think those orders are wrong. The other half of respondents were asked whether President Trump should obey Supreme Court orders he thinks are wrong. 59% of those asked about presidents say they should always obey Supreme Court orders, while 68% of those asked about Trump say he should.
Democrats and Independents are more likely to say Trump should obey the Supreme Court than to say presidents should, while similar shares of Republicans say yes to each.
Image: Getty
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