NBC News has a new poll out about the Supreme Court and, well… remember when we thought the Court’s public legitimacy crisis had probably bottomed out already? Yeah. About that….
According to the latest national poll, just 22% of respondents say they have a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in the Supreme Court. Another 40% say they have only “some” confidence, while 38% say they have “very little” or “no” confidence at all.
That 22% figure is the lowest confidence rating yet for the Court in NBC’s polling.
Which is impressive in the worst possible way considering how many opportunities this Court has had to crater public trust.
The Court’s confidence problem didn’t appear overnight. The institution’s public standing has been on a slow downward trajectory for decades, ever since the Court decided to step squarely into partisan politics.
Many observers trace the modern crisis back to the Court’s intervention in the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, which effectively decided the presidential election. Before that decision, 52% of Americans reported having a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in the Court.
That was the high-water mark.
Since then, the Roberts Court era has been defined by increasingly ideological rulings, something the public has noticed.
When the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization came down in 2022, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion and overturning Roe v. Wade, confidence in the Court took a pretty big hit. In the immediate aftermath of Dobbs, only 27% of voters said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the Court.
And somehow the numbers have gotten even worse.
This topline number is bad, but the party breakdown reveals even deeper issues. Among Democrats, just 9% say they have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the Court. Republicans are more supportive, natch, but not exactly thrilled. Only 35% of Republicans say they have a high degree of confidence in the Court.
Think about that for a second.
This is a Court where Donald Trump appointed three justices and currently enjoys an 84% win rate when his cases reach the Supreme Court. By any objective measure, the modern Court is extraordinarily favorable terrain for the conservative legal movement.
And even then, only about a third of Republicans express strong confidence in the institution.
That’s how deep the legitimacy hole is.
As Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey alongside Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, put it:
“It’s one thing to make controversial rulings that one party may or may not like but maintain respect and confidence. What we are seeing is quite the opposite, where the court is making controversial rulings but not being respected and in fact confidence is being eroded.”
This downward trajectory should feel familiar, because we’ve been watching it play out for years. Across multiple polls and questions to the American public, the Supreme Court’s numbers have just been tanking.
But this NBC poll still manages to set a new benchmark for institutional distrust.
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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