Ginsburg Is America's Favorite Supreme Court Justice

As we enter this last full week of June, we are close to what could be two monumental Supreme Court decisions -- the decision on Obamacare subsidies in states without an insurance exchange, and the decision on whether states can deny same-sex couples the same marriage rights that all other American enjoy. So this is a good time to look at what the public thinks about that court.

Public Policy Polling tries to answer that, is a new survey done between June 11th and 14th of a random national sample of 1,129 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error. It turns out that a plurality of Americans (41%) has an unfavorable opinion of the Supreme Court, while 35% has a favorable opinion and 24% are unsure what to think about the court. I doubt they'll see their popularity rise, with two controversial decisions about to be announced.

But most interesting for me, was what Americans thought of the individual justices. It turns out that the favorite justice of all adults, Independents, and Democrats is Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- while the favorite for Republicans is Clarence Thomas.

When asked who was the least favorite, all adults, Independents, and Democrats named Clarence Thomas -- and the Republicans listed Ruth Bader Ginsburg as their least favorite.

I was slightly surprised by that result -- especially the result among Democrats. While I do consider Thomas to be the most incompetent of all the justices, I really thought Scalia would be the least favorite of Democrats -- But Thomas beat him by 13 points (a significant margin).