After a term in which the Supreme Court made sweeping decisions on presidential immunity, government regulation of the economy, abortion and other issues, the court’s public image has changed little from last year.

Less than half of Americans (47%) currently express a favorable opinion of the court, while about half (51%) have an unfavorable opinion, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted July 1-7, 2024.

Opinions about the court have become slightly more positive since last year, when 44% of Americans had a favorable impression. However, positive views of the Supreme Court remain near that three-decade low. The court’s favorable rating is 23 percentage points lower than it was in August 2020.

How Democrats and Republicans view the Supreme Court

Only 24 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents view the Supreme Court favorably. That number hasn’t changed since last year and is the court’s lowest approval rating from either party in more than 30 years.

As recently as 2021 – before the court’s 2022 decision to strike down federal abortion law and other controversial rulings – nearly two-thirds of Democrats had a positive impression of the Supreme Court.

In contrast, Republicans are much more likely to view the court favorably: 73 percent have a favorable opinion. Republicans’ opinions of the court have changed much less in recent years than Democrats’ views.

Perception of the Supreme Court’s ideology

Nearly half of Americans (48%) consider the Supreme Court to be conservative, while 42% consider it “centrist.” Only 7% describe the Court as liberal.

Public perceptions of the Supreme Court’s ideology have not changed much over the past year. However, since 2020, the share of Americans who describe the court as conservative has increased by 18 percentage points. This year, 56% said the court was moderate, while 30% viewed the court as conservative and 12% viewed it as liberal.

Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to view the Supreme Court as conservative. Seven in 10 Democrats say the court is conservative, but only three in 10 Republicans say the same.

In comparison, Republicans are as likely as Democrats to say the court is moderate (59% versus 25%).

Views on the power of the Supreme Court

Half of Americans think the Supreme Court has the right amount of power, while 42% say it has too much power. Only 6% think the Court has too little power. These opinions have not changed much since 2023, when 51% of Americans said the Court has the right amount of power, and 40% said it has too much power.

Democrats are nearly three times as likely as Republicans (62% vs. 22%) to say the court has too much power. In contrast, when asked the same question in 2020, about equal numbers of Democrats (64%) and Republicans (66%) said the court has the right amount of power.

Demographic differences in Supreme Court views

Here’s a closer look at how different groups of Americans view the Supreme Court.

• More than half of women (53%) have a negative opinion of the court, while a similar proportion of men (52%) have a positive opinion.
• Two-thirds of black adults express an unfavorable opinion of the court, compared with about half of Hispanic, Asian and white adults.
• About four in ten adults under 30 (37%) have a positive impression of the court. In contrast, 54% of those over 50 say the same.

Differences within the parties in the views of the court

Democrats with lower levels of education view the Supreme Court more positively than those with higher levels of education. About a third of Democrats with a college degree or less (29%) view the Court favorably, compared with just 15% of Democrats with at least a bachelor’s degree.

The opposite is true among Republicans. About eight in ten Republicans with a college degree (81%) have a positive opinion of the court. A smaller share of Republicans with a high school diploma or less (69%) share this view.

Older Republicans continue to view the court more favorably than younger Republicans. About eight-in-ten Republicans ages 50 and older (83%) view the court favorably, while 63% of Republican adults under 50 say the same.

Supreme Court judges and their political views in court

When asked whether Supreme Court justices keep their political views out of their decisions, 18 percent of Americans say the justices do an excellent or good job, while 55 percent say they do a mediocre or poor job.

Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to believe that judges do not sufficiently keep their personal political views out of their decisions.

About three-quarters of Democrats (73 percent) say the justices do a mediocre or poor job of keeping their own views out of their rulings, while only 6 percent say they do an excellent or good job.

Republicans are divided on these assessments: 32 percent say the judges do an excellent or good job, while 39 percent say they do only a mediocre or poor job.

Overall, 87% of Americans say the judges should not bring their political views into the decision-making process; only 11% think they should do so. Comparable majorities of Democrats and Republicans say judges should not bring their personal political views into the decision-making process.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on July 21, 2023 by Katy Lin and Carroll Doherty. Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline, and the survey methodology.