Republicans Revolt: Court Approval Tanks

Red elephant icon on a background of the American flag — REPUBLICAN BOMBSHELL

The Supreme Court just hit a record-low approval rating, and this time the backlash is coming from Republicans who once cheered it on.

Story Snapshot

Gallup finds only about one-third of Americans approve of the Supreme Court, a new low.
Republican approval cratered from near 80 percent to under 60 percent in one year.
Key rulings against President Trump on tariffs and birthright citizenship helped drive the shift.
The drop sits inside a longer crisis of trust in major institutions, not just the courts.

Republican anger turns on a Court they once embraced

Gallup’s latest poll shows just 33 percent of Americans approve of the Supreme Court’s work, while 61 percent disapprove, the worst numbers Gallup has ever recorded for the Court. That headline is bad enough, but the real shock sits underneath.

Republican approval fell from a near-record 79 percent last fall to 58 percent in 2026, the sharpest one-year drop in years for a party that had treated the Court as an ally.

Supreme Court approval hits record low as Republicans' support declines https://t.co/3aEWQziDNn

— CNBC Politics (@CNBCPolitics) July 28, 2026

Gallup did not leave people guessing about why the slide happened. Its write-up notes that rulings “unfavorable to the Trump administration this term, such as those on tariffs and birthright citizenship, weigh more heavily in Republicans’ evaluations of the court than the rulings that favored Trump and the GOP.”

That is pollster-speak for a simple truth: when the Court crossed core Trump agenda items, many Republican voters saw it as crossing them.

Tariffs, birthright citizenship, and the limits of presidential power

The first major blow landed on Trump’s tariff plan. In a six-to-three decision, the justices struck down sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs that Trump had imposed almost across the board on foreign countries, ruling that this unilateral move exceeded his constitutional authority.

For conservatives who see tariffs as weapons against global elites and cheating trade partners, that decision looked like the Court siding with technocrats and foreign governments over American workers.

The bigger political earthquake came from Trump v. Barbara, the birthright citizenship case. Trump had issued an executive order to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to parents here illegally or only temporarily.

The Court rejected that order and held that these children are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, because they are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. For many conservatives, that sounded like locking in a system they view as rewarding illegal entry and eroding national sovereignty.

A legitimacy crisis years in the making

Polls show this collapse did not happen in a vacuum. Public confidence in the Court has been sliding for years, across both parties. Gallup and Pew Research Center have tracked approval stuck in the low 40s since 2021, with favorability near a three-decade low and overall confidence in the Court at the weakest point since the 1970s.

Other surveys, from Fox News and academic pollsters, find similar patterns: fewer than half of Americans approve of the justices’ performance, and disapproval often reaches 60 percent.

Supreme Court approval hits record low as Republicans’ support declines – CNBChttps://t.co/GVlY4JpAHY

— Open Outcrier (@OpenOutcrier) July 28, 2026

Many Americans now see the Court as political, not neutral. A Washington Post–Ipsos poll found most Americans disapprove of its performance, and about 46 percent believe the justices are ruling on Trump’s policies based on ideology rather than law.

That perception lines up with Gallup’s finding that Republicans once overwhelmingly approved of the Court, while Democratic approval fell to record lows after decisions like the 2022 abortion ruling. People on each side are quick to call the Court “politicized” the moment it rules against their team.

Are unpopular rulings the same as bad law?

The numbers show frustration, but they do not prove the Court suddenly abandoned judicial standards. Polls measure opinion, not legal correctness.

Even in 2026, when approval hit 33 percent, the surveys only asked if people liked what the Court was doing, not whether its constitutional reasoning on tariffs, birthright citizenship, or the Federal Reserve matched precedent and text. That gap matters. In a system built on the rule of law, judges are supposed to follow the Constitution even when voters disagree.

From a rule-of-law angle, there is a key question: did these Trump-era cases reflect durable principles, or a partisan swipe at the sitting president? The birthright citizenship decision rested on the Fourteenth Amendment’s language and decades of prior rulings that treated “all persons born … in the United States” as citizens, with only narrow exceptions.

Where this leaves conservatives and the country

Still, there is no denying the political signal. When Republican approval drops twenty points in a year, it tells us many conservatives now see the Court as part of the same distant establishment they blame for trade deals, porous borders, and unaccountable central bankers.

That reaction fits a wider pattern: trust in almost every major institution, from Congress to the Federal Reserve, has sagged as voters feel they are losing control over decisions that shape their lives.

The risk is simple and serious. If half the country treats every controversial ruling as proof that courts are corrupt, and the other half does the same when outcomes flip, then the shared belief that law, not raw power, decides cases starts to crack.

For Americans who care about ordered liberty, that is the line that must not be crossed. Criticizing specific decisions is healthy. Tossing out the entire idea of an independent Court because of a bad week of rulings is not.