This week, the US Supreme Court delivered its most controversial ruling in at least a decade. Wade’s decision to overturn the historic Roe v. Wade ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion could have major electoral consequences in this year’s midterm elections.
I partially covered political influence in a previous column. But the court’s action in this case could do more than just affect this year’s elections.
The Supreme Court’s own reputation is at stake, and Roe v. The decision to get rid of Wade and upset the status quo comes at a very sensitive time for judges in a different court: one of public opinion.
And that’s where we’ll start our look at the week’s news through numbers.
The Supreme Court is historically unpopular
The Supreme Court is not elected by the voters. However, many agree that it is important that the court maintains its legitimacy in the public eye. Ultimately, the court relies on others to enforce its decisions.
The legitimacy of the High Court was already at a very low level in the public mind, and it was only a matter of time before Roe overturned – something that most Americans did not want.
Forty-one percent of voters approved of the work being done by the Supreme Court, according to a May Quinnipiac University poll. The majority (52%) disapproved. This was the highest rejection rating Quinnipiac recorded since it began asking for court approval in 2004.
The court’s position reversed from two years ago when 52% of voters approved and 37% disapproved of the Quinnipiac poll.
Quinnipiac isn’t the only pollster to have shown a major downturn in the court’s position. The percentage (25%) of Americans who have too much or considerable confidence in the court is at the lowest level recorded by Gallup since 1973.
The slide can be attributed primarily to Democrats. According to Quinnipiac, today, 78% of Democrats disapprove of the work being done by the court. In 2020, just 43% did. Republican disapproval of the court has dropped from 38% two years ago to 28% now.
The reason the public and Democrats have turned against the Supreme Court is very clear: it is seen as increasingly political and issuing decisions that are not popular.
The Quinnipiac poll above showed that only 34% of voters believed that the court was primarily motivated by the law. Most (62%) felt that the Supreme Court was primarily politically motivated. Four years ago, the divide was even greater, with 50% believing the court was primarily politically motivated and 42% saying it was primarily motivated by law.
Again, this trend is driven by Democrats. Eighty-six percent of them told Quinnipiac that the court was primarily politically motivated. This is up from 60% in 2018. Republicans who said so had barely changed, from 46% in 2018 to 42% now.
It would be one thing if the court was seen as a proactive activist and as a form of popular decision-making. This. Both the Gallup and Quinnipiac elections were taken after word leaked in May that Court was preparing to reverse Row.
The Americans agreed with the 1973 Roe regime. A May NBC News poll found that 63% of them did not want Row to be reversed. In fact, every poll I know has shown a clear majority of Americans in favor of Roe.
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