A Gallup poll published Thursday found the Supreme Court’s approval rating dropped 9 percentage points since July, after the high court declined to block a Texas ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
The poll found 40% of Americans approved of the job the high court is doing, while 53% disapproved.
The percentage of Americans who had a “fair amount” of trust in the judiciary has declined from 67% last year to 54% in the latest poll.
According to Gallup, the approval rating is the lowest in its roughly two decades of polling since 2000.
The poll was conducted Sept. 1-17 among 1,005 adults. It has a 4-percentage-point margin of error.
Gallup is not alone in its findings. According to a Quinnipiac University poll last week, respondents also rated the high court’s approval the lowest in nearly two decades.
In the Quinnipiac study, 50% of registered voters gave the high court a negative approval rating, while 37% approved of the job the justices are doing. The poll was administered after the Supreme Court declined to block Texas’ abortion law.
Abortion will remain at the forefront of the high court’s upcoming term, which kicks off in October.
On Dec. 1 the justices will hear a case out of Mississippi over its 15-week ban on abortion. Lower courts have blocked that law but the state took the challenge to the justices.
A decision in the Mississippi case is expected by the end of June 2022.
Pro-choice advocates say a ruling in favor of Mississippi would lead to overturning the 1973 landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade that guaranteed a right to an abortion before the third trimester.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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