Job Approval Ratings For The United States Supreme Court

The chart above uses numbers from a series of surveys done by the Gallup Poll regarding the job approval ratings for the United States Supreme Court. The latest survey was done between July 7th and 10th of a random national sample of 1,013 adults (and has a margin of error of 4 points).

Note that support for the court among Democrats and Republicans has swung wildly over the last decade and a half -- probably in response to individual decisions made by the court. Among Democrats the approval started at 70% in 2000, then dropped to 48% in 2006, climbed back to 70% in 2009, and has been falling since that time, currently resting at 44%. For the Republicans, the approval started at 60% in 2000, climbed to 75% in 2006, and by 2012 it had fallen to 29% -- currently resting at 51%.

But while approval has been up and down among Democrats and Republicans, the same is not true of Independents and the public at large. For both of these groups, court approval has shown a rather steady decline in the last decade and a half -- from 57% in 2000 to 45% in 2014 for Independents, and from 62% in 2000 to 47% in 2014 for the general public.