The Supreme Court's liberal justices gained the most in popularity after the court issued its biggest decisions of the term, according to a poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek.
The court's conservative majority ruled to kill President Joe Biden's $400 billion plan to cancel or reduce federal student loan debts and end affirmative action in higher education. And in a major decision for gay rights, the court also ruled 6-3 that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work with same-sex couples.
A new poll by Redfield and Wilton Strategies found that the net favorability of the court's three liberal justices—Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor—has risen the most since a poll conducted in June, before those major decisions were issued.
The poll, which surveyed 1,500 voters on July 6 on behalf of Newsweek, found Jackson's rating rose the most from a poll conducted on June 11. Her net favorability was 20 percent in July, up eight points from 12 percent in June.
Jackson, the first Black woman appointed to the court, made her voice heard in her first year. She wrote in dissent that the decision to end affirmative action is "truly a tragedy for us all."
She added: "With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces 'colorblindness for all' by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life."
Kagan and Sotomayor saw their net favorability ratings rise by six and five points respectively. Sotomayor, the court's first Latina who also wrote in dissent on the decision to end affirmative action, was the court's most popular justice with a net favorability rating of 21 percent in July. Kagan's rating was 14 percent.
The court's other Black justice, Clarence Thomas, remains the court's least popular member. However, his net favorability rating did increase from 1 percent in June to 3 percent in July.
Chief Justice John Roberts continues to be the most popular member of the court's conservative wing, according to the July poll.
However, he was the only justice to see his net favorability drop: his rating dropped by 2 points, from 17 percent to 15 percent.
There was no change in the approval ratings of Justice Neil Gorsuch (9 percent) and Justice Brett Kavanaugh (8 percent), both appointees of former President Donald Trump, from the June to July polls.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the newest conservative justice and the third appointee of Trump, saw her net favorability rise by two points, to 8 percent.
The approval ratings of individual justices "has little bearing on long-term trends regarding public perceptions of the Court's legitimacy," said Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science and director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, U.K.
"It's worth being wary of polls that purport to show that voters have finely tuned opinions on each of the Court's members," Gift told Newsweek, pointing to a 2018 survey that found more than half of Americans could not name a single Supreme Court justice.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Khaleda Rahman is Newsweek's Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, ... Read more
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