A poll released Friday by the progressive consortium Navigator Research found support for expanding the Supreme Court was above water for the first time since the group began tracking the question.
By a 5-point margin, registered voters supported "adding more Justices to the Supreme Court beyond the current 9 seats," 42% - 37%, with 21% uncertain.
Support for expanding the high court in the survey—conducted May 5-9, in the days following the leaked draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade—represented a double-digit increase from March, when the idea was 5 points underwater.
Notably, support for adding justices to the Supreme Court also increased when overturning Roe and other rulings were included in the question.
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Question: Some people say that given the Supreme Court’s potential overturning of Roe v. Wade, along with the potential for the Supreme Court to overturn protections for other rights like interracial marriage and LGBTQ rights, the Court should be expanded to offset its current conservative majority and prevent those rulings from happening. Knowing this, do you support or oppose adding more Justices to the Supreme Court beyond the current 9 seats to counteract the current conservative majority?
That question garnered 46% support (a 4-point improvement), 37% opposition, with 17% unsure.
The polling comes at the end of a week in which several other surveys showed waning trust in the Supreme Court as an institution.
Fully half of registered voters expressed little (24%) or no (26%) confidence in the Supreme Court, in a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted immediately after the leak.
A Monmouth University poll found that more than half (52%) of Americans now disapprove of the job the court is doing while just 38% approve. Two months ago, the high court’s approval rating stood at an even 42% approve/42% disapprove.
Morning Consult’s weekly tracking poll found a similar slip in confidence, with just 49% of respondents expressing trust in the Supreme Court as of May 8, down from 52% on May 2 and 57% on April 23.
Public confidence in the Supreme Court as an institution is reaching crisis-level lows, a circumstance that has been exacerbated by news of the court’s radical overturning of Roe v. Wade. Now, that collapse in trust appears to have Americans more open to seeking new solutions.
