Confidence in US Supreme Court falls to historic low in new poll

Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court has reached a historic low, according to an NBC News poll released this week. Just 22% of registered voters say they have strong confidence in the court, the lowest figure recorded since the survey began tracking the measure in 2000. The survey of 1,000 voters was conducted between Feb. 27 and March 3 and shows nearly four in 10 Americans now express little or no confidence in the court.

Historic drop in trust: Another 40% of respondents said they have only “some” confidence in the court, while 38% said they have very little or no confidence. Combined, 78% of voters report limited confidence or none in the institution.

NBC News polling shows that 52% of Americans said they had strong confidence in the Supreme Court when the survey first asked the question in December 2000, marking a decline of 30 percentage points over more than two decades. The previous low point in the survey came in 2022, when confidence dropped to 27% after the court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Sharp partisan confidence gap: Among Republicans, 35% said they have strong confidence in the Supreme Court, compared with 9% of Democrats, while independent voters reported levels between those groups. The poll also indicates confidence in the court has declined among both parties over time even as Republicans continue to report higher levels of trust than Democrats.

Jeff Horwitt, a Democratic pollster with Hart Research Associates who helped conduct the survey, told NBC News the results suggest the court is losing public confidence beyond routine disagreement over rulings. “It’s one thing to make controversial rulings that one party may or may not like but maintain respect and confidence,” Horwitt said.

The Supreme Court, which holds a 6-3 conservative majority following three appointments made during Donald Trump’s first term as president, has recently taken up several high-profile immigration disputes that have drawn national scrutiny. The justices agreed to review the legality of Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship, a case challenging whether children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status are entitled to automatic citizenship under the 14th Amendment.

The court also allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to resume certain enforcement practices after lifting a federal judge’s injunction that had barred officers from stopping people based primarily on factors such as race, language or type of work.

A September 2025 Pew Research Center survey found the court’s favorability remained near a three decade low, with 47% of Americans describing the court as conservative, while an April 2025 survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center reported trust in the court had fallen 27 percentage points since 2019 to 41%.