Public Opinion and U.S. Supreme Court cases

Cases of the Oct. 2024 term

The Marquette Law School poll has conducted multiple national polls of opinion on cases before the U.S. Supreme Court in the October 2024 term. This post shows this results for cases that have been decided or are still pending. Additional polling will be conducted in July following the end of the term.

Links to SCOTUSBlog page for each case provide more details of the cases.

Classified documents

A federal judge in Florida has dismissed the case charging Trump with illegally retaining classified documents and obstructing government efforts to recover the documents. The judge ruled that the appointment of the special counsel violated the Constitution. Do you favor or oppose this ruling?

Poll datesFavorOpposeDon’t know
7/24-8/1/24374319
Party IDPoll datesFavorOpposeDon’t know
Republican7/24-8/1/24661221
Independent7/24-8/1/24253045
Democrat7/24-8/1/24127612

TikTok Ban

TikTok v. Garland

In January the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring the social media app TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, to be sold or banned in the U.S. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll datesFavorOppose
1/27-2/6/256238
Party IDPoll datesFavorOppose
Republican1/27-2/6/257327
Independent1/27-2/6/255347
Democrat1/27-2/6/255446

Halt Trump criminal sentencing

Trump v. New York

In January the Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump’s request to halt his criminal sentencing in New York where he was convicted in May on 34 felony counts, allowing sentencing to proceed. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll datesFavorOppose
1/27-2/6/256535
Party IDPoll datesFavorOppose
Republican1/27-2/6/254357
Independent1/27-2/6/257030
Democrat1/27-2/6/258712

Texas porn access

Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton

In January the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning a Texas law meant to prevent minors from accessing sexual materials on the internet, through a requirement that adults prove they are 18 or over by submitting government-issued IDs in order to access sexually oriented websites. Do you think the court should uphold this law or strike it down for infringing on the rights of adults?

Poll datesUphold the lawStrike it down
1/27-2/6/256931
Party IDPoll datesUphold the lawStrike it down
Republican1/27-2/6/257822
Independent1/27-2/6/257426
Democrat1/27-2/6/255743

Freeze foreign aid payments

Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition

[In March, the Supreme Court rejected President Trump’s request to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid, sending the case back to a lower court for further proceedings.] How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll datesFavorOppose
3/17-27/255842
Party IDPoll datesFavorOppose
Republican3/17-27/253961
Independent3/17-27/256040
Democrat3/17-27/257624

EPA regulation limits

City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency

[In March, the Supreme Court ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was entitled to impose specific requirements on permit holders to prevent pollution but not to make the permit holders responsible simply because water quality has fallen below the agency’s standards.] How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll datesFavorOppose
3/17-27/254852
Party IDPoll datesFavorOppose
Republican3/17-27/255941
Independent3/17-27/254555
Democrat3/17-27/253862

Religious charter school

Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond

[In April, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case asking whether a state that generally funds charter schools as alternatives to traditional public schools may refuse to fund a charter school simply because it is explicitly religious.] How do you think the Court should rule?

Poll datesThe state may refuse to fund the religious charter schoolThe state is required to fund a religious charter school
3/17-27/255743
Party IDPoll datesThe state may refuse to fund the religious charter schoolThe state is required to fund a religious charter school
Republican3/17-27/254555
Independent3/17-27/256040
Democrat3/17-27/256832

Ban transition treatment for minors

United States v. Skrmetti

[In December, the Supreme Court heard arguments challenging a Tennessee law that prohibits medical providers from prescribing puberty-delaying medication or performing gender transition surgery for youth under 18.] How do you think the Court should rule?

Poll datesUphold the Tennessee lawOverturn the law
3/17-27/257227
5/5-15/257030
Party IDPoll datesUphold the Tennessee lawOverturn the law
Republican3/17-27/259010
Republican5/5-15/25928
Independent3/17-27/257921
Independent5/5-15/257327
Democrat3/17-27/255248
Democrat5/5-15/254456

Trump administration must facilitate return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Noem v. Abrego Garcia

In April, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law requires the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a man erroneously deported to El Salvador. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll datesFavorOppose
5/5-15/256733
Party IDPoll datesFavorOppose
Republican5/5-15/254159
Independent5/5-15/256534
Democrat5/5-15/25946

Must provide due process before deportation

Trump v. J.G.G.

In April, the Supreme Court said that those the administration is seeking to deport under the Alien Enemies Act must receive notice that they are subject to deportation within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek court review before such deportation occurs. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll datesFavorOppose
5/5-15/256535
Party IDPoll datesFavorOppose
Republican5/5-15/254357
Independent5/5-15/256139
Democrat5/5-15/259010

Parents can opt kids out of LGBTQ readings

Mahmoud v. Taylor

In April, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case asking whether parents of elementary school students should be able to opt their children out of reading classes concerning stories about LGBTQ+ characters, if those stories conflict with the families’ religious beliefs. How do you think the Court should rule?

Poll datesParents should be able to opt outThe schools should set the curriculum for all
5/5-15/257030
Party IDPoll datesParents should be able to opt outThe schools should set the curriculum for all
Republican5/5-15/25919
Independent5/5-15/256931
Democrat5/5-15/254852

Cases not yet polled

Reverse Discrimination

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services

Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s “background circumstances” rule — which requires members of a majority group to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard to prevail on a Title VII discrimination claim — cannot be squared with either the text of Title VII or the Supreme Court’s precedents.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Jackson on June 5, 2025. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined.

Smith & Wesson v Mexico

Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos

Holding: Because Mexico’s complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act bars the lawsuit.

Judgment: Reversed, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on June 5, 2025. Justices Thomas and Jackson filed concurring opinions.

Police excessive use of force

Barnes v. Felix

Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s moment-of-threat rule — a framework for evaluating police shootings which requires a court to look only to the circumstances existing at the precise time an officer perceived the threat inducing him to shoot — improperly narrows the Fourth Amendment analysis of police use of force.

Judgment: Vacated and Remanded , 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on May 15, 2025. Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett joined.

Regulation of Flavored Vapes

Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments

Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit erred in setting aside as arbitrary and capricious the FDA’s orders denying respondents’ applications for authorization to market new e-cigarette products pursuant to The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009; the 5th Circuit also relied on an incorrect standard to reject the FDA’s claim of harmless error regarding the agency’s failure to consider marketing plans submitted by respondents.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Alito on April 2, 2025. Justice Sotomayor filed a concurring opinion.

Ghost guns

Garland v. VanDerStok

Emergency application for stay is granted on Aug. 8, 2023. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh would deny the application for stay.

Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should stay the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas baring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from enforcing a 2022 rule regulating “ghost guns” as firearms.

Birthright Citizenship or Universal Injunction

Trump v. CASA

Emergency application for partial stay

Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.

Race and Congressional districting

Louisiana v. Callais

Issue: (1) Whether the majority of the three-judge district court in this case erred in finding that race predominated in the Louisiana legislature”s enactment of S.B. 8; (2) whether the majority erred in finding that S.B. 8 fails strict scrutiny; (3) whether the majority erred in subjecting S.B. 8 to the preconditions specified in Thornburg v. Gingles; and (4) whether this action is non-justiciable.

Continue ReadingPublic Opinion and U.S. Supreme Court cases

Trump is more popular than many of his policies

Many Americans love Donald Trump and even more hate him, but neither of these groups is large enough to win an election by themselves. Except when turnout is low, American elections for the past 9 years have turned with the preferences of those voters whose views of Trump are mixed.

In order to better understand these voters, the Marquette Law School Poll regularly invites a representative sample of American adults to answer the following two simple questions. What do you like about Donald Trump? What do you dislike about him? Respondents can write as much or as little as they want.

The answers to these questions, when paired with traditional multiple-choice items, show a large chunk of the electorate whose attitudes toward the president and broad policy issues, like immigration or trans rights, are malleable. These (potential) voters often hold combinations of views that are rarely found among politicians, making their support for any candidate contingent on issue salience, framing, and whatever ineffable quality makes some candidates seem more trustworthy than the rest.

Our latest poll was in the field in late March, preceding Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement. Previous installments were fielded a few weeks before and about a month after the inauguration.

At a high level, views of Trump changed little throughout the first three months of his presidency. Shortly before his inauguration, 49% of adults in our polling had a favorable opinion of him. That stood at 44% at the beginning of February and 46% in late March–all changes within the margin of error.

The overall patterns in the open-ended answers haven’t changed much either. In the latest poll, 50% of adults listed something they both like and disliked about Trump. 11% couldn’t name anything they disliked, and 36% couldn’t name anything they liked.

Summary of open-ended survey responses
in the Marquette Law School Poll, national adult sample
Attitude toward Donald Trumpsurvey dates
12/2-11/241/27-2/6/253/17-27/25
Can name likes and dislikes51%47%50%
Doesn’t dislike anything12%14%11%
Doesn’t like anything35%36%36%
no answer2%3%2%

This stability in overall attitude toward Trump doesn’t surprise me. After all, he has been at the center of American politics since his first primary campaign began a decade ago. Few voters lack an opinion of him and much of his behavior is already “priced in.”

But even though attitudes toward Trump himself are fairly stable, if trending a bit downward, opinions toward Trump’s favored policies are all over the place.

In our latest poll, we asked about 10 topics related to Trump’s agenda or recent Supreme Court decisions. The graph below shows the responses to each.

The most popular position across all of these questions was support for the 2020 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting workplace discrimination against “gay and transgender workers.” Eight-two percent of adults agreed with extending federal civil rights law to these workers.

At the same time, 72% of adults hope the Supreme Court upholds a Tennessee law prohibiting “medical providers from prescribing puberty-delaying medication or performing gender transition surgery for youth under 18.”

A large majority, 68%, support the deportation of undocumented immigrants when asked “Do you favor or oppose deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home countries?” When the wording is changed to include, “even if they have lived here for a number of years, have jobs and no criminal record?” support falls to 41% and opposition rises to 59%.

A decisive share of voters are not consistently “pro” or “anti” trans rights or deportation. Rather, their answers depend on the specific facts included in each question.

graph showing support and opposition for various policies

For each of the above questions, I coded a respondent as “1” if they supported the Trump/conservative position, “-1” if they chose the Democratic/liberal position, and “0” if they declined to take a side. A respondent receives a score of -10 if they took every liberal position and +10 if they always took the conservative side. The graph below shows the distribution of scores for all adults.

Few respondents fell into the most liberal or conservative categories. Forty-two percent are in the most liberal third and 31% are in the most conservative third of possible scores. Twenty-six percent of adults fell in the middle, with scores reflecting a mixture of support for conservative or liberal policies.

It is the open-ended answers from this last group that give insight into the views and beliefs of the most persuadable section of the electorate.

net ideological score of support and opposition for various policies

Click here to access our tool for viewing randomized responses to our open-ended questions. The tool allows you to filter responses by the respondent’s degree of support or opposition to Trump’s policies.

screenshot of interactive tool
Continue ReadingTrump is more popular than many of his policies

Perceptions of Donald Trump a month into his second term

The stability of Donald Trump’s approval rating was practically a meme during his first administration. No matter the headlines, scarcely any voters appeared to change their minds about the president, at least not when asked the simple question, Do you approve or disapprove of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president?

It remains to be seen whether Trump in his second term will enjoy (or suffer) from the same apparently locked-in public attitudes. But to shed more light into what Americans really think about him, the Marquette Law School Poll has begun asking two open-ended questions. What do you [like/dislike] about Donald Trump? We randomize the order of the two questions, and respondents can write whatever they want.

Each survey, we ask about 1,000 adults these questions. All but two or three percent share a response.

In December, 35% expressed entirely negative views of Trump, 12% were entirely positive, and 51% were mixed, sharing both likes and dislikes (the remaining 2% refused to answer). This changed only slightly in early 2025. The group with mixed opinions shrank by 4 percentage points, and the other categories grew by 1 or 2 points each.

Summary of open-ended survey responses
in the Marquette Law School Poll, national adult sample
Attitude toward Donald Trumpsurvey dates
12/2-11/241/27-2/6/25
Can name likes and dislikes51%47%
Doesn’t dislike anything12%14%
Doesn’t like anything35%36%
no answer2%3%

Donald Trump won in 2024 because he beat Harris by about 38 points among voters holding mixed views of him. He enjoyed especially high support among those who hadn’t voted at all in 2020.

Most of these people still approve of how Trump has begun his second term. However, Trump’s approval rating has slipped with this group, relative to December 2024.

In December 2024, 53% of adults approved (and 47% disapproved) of how Trump had handled his job during his first term. About a month into Trump’s second term, 48% approve and 52% disapprove of how Trump is currently handling his job.

The drop in approval is entirely due to lower views of Trump’s current job performance among those with more ambivalent views of him.

Among those who only listed things they like about Trump, 96% approved of his past job performance in the December poll and 96% likewise approve of his current job performance in the February poll.

Conversely, 97% of those with only negative things to say about Trump disapproved of his past job performance in December and disapprove of his current job performance in February.

But among those with mixed views of Trump, 77% gave him retrospective approval in December, falling to 67% approval in February.

Themes in the open-ended responses

Some voters express idiosyncratic combinations of views when given the opportunity. You’ll find the occasional conservative whose only complaint about Trump is his support for Israel or the odd Harris voter who dislikes Trump’s “racist attitude” but appreciates that he “doesn’t drink or smoke dope.”

But most responses fall into familiar categories. Here are a few themes that stood out to me.

  • Outside of the 36% of adults who despise Trump, Trump’s hyper-aggressive first month in office is usually perceived favorably. Many people said things like, “he’s fulfilling campaign promises,” or “He has already done more in a few days than Biden did.”
  • A common complaint among those who generally like Trump is his communication style. Some representative comments: “he talks too much”; “the way he talks, very crude”; and “mean tweets, rehearsing [sic] his wins in election too often.”
  • On the other hand, even some people who disapprove of him like aspects of his communication. “Confidence, has charisma, is funny on occasion”; “He’s funny. He says what he thinks.”
  • Quite a few people complained about Trump’s pardoning of the January 6th rioters, and few or none mentioned it favorably.

Finally, these data also undermine a point I have occasionally heard from conservative commentators. Referencing the more “muted” response to Trump’s second term from Democratic politicians and left-leaning organizations, some have argued that opposition toward Trump’s first term was largely an elite, media creation.

On the contrary, in reading these open-ended responses I see no diminution of opposition to Trump. If anything, the vitriolic tone may have intensified among those who like nothing about him. This group is not a majority of the country. It includes under 40% of adults in our sample, but is is more than twice as large as the group of people with only positive things to say about Trump.

During Trump’s first term, his opponents turned out at unusually high levels–flipping seats during special elections and midterms at a startling clip. Democrats will look to repeat that playbook in 2025 and 2026. The surprise victory of a Democratic candidate in a Trump +21 Iowa state senate district is a small, early indication that this strategy may work.

Explore the data

The above is just my interpretation of these responses. I strongly encouraged you to read them for yourself. Click here to access our web app for viewing responses. The tool allows you to see 5 randomly* selected responses with each click of the button. Some of these responses contain profane language and many contain typos. We present them in unedited form.

screenshot of a table from the web application showing random responses to the open ended questions about Donald Trump
Continue ReadingPerceptions of Donald Trump a month into his second term