Supreme Court approval rating hits 33%, a Gallup record low

Filed under regulation-ethics. Last verified: Aug. 1, 2026. Gallup’s July 2026 Supreme Court job-approval reading is 33%, the lowest result in Gallup’s 26-year trend and six points below the prior 39% low recorded in July 2025; Gallup also reported 61% disapproval, its record high for the series. The usable citation is Gallup’s July 28, 2026 release, fielded July 1–19 among 1,200 U.S. adults, with a ±4.0 percentage-point margin of sampling error. [1]

That sentence should not be shortened to “the Supreme Court’s approval is 33%” without the word Gallup nearby. The number is a record low inside Gallup’s job-approval trend, under Gallup’s field dates, sample, and mode.

What Gallup actually measured

Gallup reported job approval of the Supreme Court, not confidence in the judiciary generally, trust in individual justices, support for specific holdings, or public agreement with the Court’s 2025–26 term. The topline was 33% approve and 61% disapprove, with the remaining respondents outside those two categories. [1]

The release identifies the poll as part of the Gallup Poll Social Series, conducted by ReconMR by telephone from July 1 through July 19, 2026. The sample was 1,200 U.S. adults, and Gallup reported a margin of sampling error of ±4.0 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. [1]

Gallup’s release also references a question-responses PDF. This article does not rely on that file as a separate evidentiary source; the figures used here come from Gallup’s release and Gallup’s published trend materials. [1]

Where 33% sits in the Gallup record

The record-low label is supportable because Gallup’s own trend begins with a 62% approval reading in 2000, falls to a notable 42% low in June 2005, then reaches repeated 40% lows in the early 2020s before dropping below 40% for the first time in July 2025. The July 2026 reading moves the floor again, from 39% to 33%. [1][2]

For citation purposes, the table matters more than the adjective. “Record low” is true in Gallup’s series because the 33% result is lower than the 39% July 2025 reading and lower than every earlier Gallup reading identified in the trend record. [1][2]

The drop was not evenly distributed across party groups

The most important move since Gallup’s last reading came from Republicans. Republican approval fell from 79% in September 2025 to 58% in July 2026, a 21-point drop. Democratic approval was 12% in July 2026, and independent approval was 35%. [1]

That makes the July 2026 record low a partisan-divergence event, not a clean national collapse. USA Today’s account of the same Gallup sequence put the overall readings at 39% in July 2025, 42% in September 2025, and 33% in July 2026, while Democratic approval stayed within an 11%–14% band across those three readings. [3]

Gallup’s longer party-gap reporting helps explain why this kind of movement can be missed in a topline-only retelling. Gallup reported that the average party gap in Supreme Court job approval was 18 points from 2000 through 2010 and 32 points thereafter. It also identified a 2015 episode in which Republican approval fell to 18% after the Court’s Obergefell and Affordable Care Act rulings. [4]

Gallup’s July 2026 release cited several 2025–26 term rulings as context, including decisions upholding presidential firing power in Trump v. Slaughter and transgender-athlete bans, and decisions striking down IEEPA tariffs in Learning Resources v. Trump, a birthright-citizenship order in Trump v. Barbara, and the removal of Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook in Trump v. Cook. Those case references help date the polling environment, but they do not turn the survey into a case-by-case causal study. [1]

How far the Gallup number can travel

A memo can safely say that Gallup recorded a Supreme Court approval rating of 33%, the lowest in Gallup’s 26-year trend. It should not say, without qualification, that “the Court’s approval rating” is 33% if the sentence is meant to summarize the whole polling universe.

That distinction is not pedantic. In 2025, SCOTUSblog reviewed how Gallup’s low Supreme Court approval numbers coexisted with materially higher readings from other pollsters, including a Fox News result described as a five-year high at 47% and higher Marquette readings. The explanation was not that one headline had to be false; question wording and sample design can produce different measures of public opinion. [5]

As of this article’s Aug. 1, 2026 verification date, no July 2026 Marquette number is used here. A comparison between Gallup and Marquette should wait for a published Marquette wave or use Marquette’s most recent available wave with its own field dates and wording attached. Gallup’s 33% is therefore best treated as a Gallup record, not as a cross-poll average.

Citation-safe wording

The cleanest version is: Gallup’s July 1–19, 2026 poll found that 33% of U.S. adults approved of the Supreme Court’s job performance and 61% disapproved, the lowest approval and highest disapproval in Gallup’s 26-year trend; the poll surveyed 1,200 adults and had a ±4.0 percentage-point margin of sampling error. [1]

If the party movement matters to the reader, add the next sentence: The new drop was driven mainly by Republicans, whose approval fell from 79% in September 2025 to 58% in July 2026, while Democratic approval was 12% and independent approval was 35% in the July 2026 poll. [1]

References

1. Supreme Court Job Approval Slumps to Record Low — Gallup, July 28, 2026
2. Approval of U.S. Supreme Court Stalled Near Historical Low — Gallup, July 30, 2024
3. Americans' opinions about Supreme Court hit record low: Gallup poll — USA Today, July 29, 2026
4. Record Party Gaps in Job Approval of Supreme Court, Congress — Gallup, Aug. 7, 2025
5. The Supreme Court is historically unpopular right now. Or is it? — SCOTUSblog, Aug. 22, 2025