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By Anna Commander
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Nearly half of registered voters believe the Supreme Court is biased in favor of President Donald Trump, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll, as Trump has increasingly sought the justices' intervention on election-related matters ahead of the midterms.
The poll, conducted September 4-8 among 1,469 registered voters, found that 44 percent said the Supreme Court is biased in favor of Trump, while just 12 percent said it is biased against him. Another 27 percent said the Court is not biased and treats Trump fairly, while 18 percent were unsure. The poll's margin of error is 3.4 percent.
The perception is sharply divided along partisan lines. Eighty-one percent of voters who supported then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election said the Court is biased in Trump's favor, compared with just 9 percent of Trump voters. Among Democrats, 77 percent said the Court favors Trump, while 20 percent of Republicans said it is biased against him and nearly 50 percent said it treats him fairly. The survey shows that 44 percent of independents said the Court favors Trump, 23 percent said it treats him fairly and 8 percent said it is biased against him.
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Newsweek reached out to the Supreme Court via email on Wednesday for comment.
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The latest survey also found that the Supreme Court's overall standing has weakened since earlier this summer. Fifty-six percent of registered voters said they disapprove of how the Court is handling its job, compared with 34 percent who approve. In an Economist/YouGov poll conducted in July, 50 percent disapproved and 36 percent approved. At the same time, the share of respondents describing the Court as conservative rose from 44 percent in July to 49 percent in the latest survey, while the share calling it liberal increased only slightly, from 9 percent to 10 percent.
The timing comes as the Supreme Court faced a growing number of politically consequential election disputes ahead of the November midterms. The Court recently declined to reinstate a Republican-backed congressional map in Missouri, while it has also issued other rulings affecting the Trump administration and Republican campaign efforts. With registered voters seemingly divided over the Court's ideological direction and its relationship with Trump, any future ruling could further shape public perceptions of the judiciary.
The new poll also shows that 47 percent think the Supreme Court's recent rulings have given Trump too much power. Thirty percent said the rulings give him about the right amount of power, 8 percent said too little power, and 15 percent are not sure. Seventy-three percent said the president should always obey orders from the Court, even if he believes they are wrong. Eleven percent said no and 16 percent said not sure. A randomly assigned half of the respondents were asked that question, the poll notes.
A July Economist/YouGov poll found mixed views of individual Supreme Court justices. Amy Coney Barrett was viewed favorably by 23 percent of respondents and unfavorably by 38 percent, while 29 percent viewed Clarence Thomas favorably and 41 percent unfavorably. Chief Justice John Roberts had a 25 percent favorable rating and 36 percent unfavorable rating, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was viewed favorably by 34 percent and unfavorably by 26 percent.
The poll found that the net favorability ratings of Justices Thomas, Barrett and Kavanaugh all soured compared to a similar poll conducted a year earlier, reflecting a shift in Americans' opinions of the Court.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech and Gray R. Thomas
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