June 4, 2026, 1:00 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON − Most adults think the Supreme Court usually sides with President Donald Trump, according to a new survey being released as the justices are about to hand down some of their biggest decisions of the term.
In a Marquette Law School Poll taken in May, about 6 in 10 adults said the court rules for Trump “almost always” or “most of the time.”
That’s despite the fact that the court, in February, rejected the sweeping tariffs that were the centerpiece of Trump’s economic agenda.
But a majority of the justices have also often allowed Trump’s controversial policies to move forward while they’re being litigated, even when those policies are hard to reverse.
Such interim decisions have allowed the administration to terminate billions of dollars of federal spending, fire thousands of civil servants, remove deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants, and ban transgender people from serving in the military, along with other changes.
The court’s tariff’s decision, by contrast, was its first major ruling against Trump’s controversial expansive view of presidential power.
It’s unlikely to be the last.
The court will be deciding in coming weeks – and potentially as early as June 4 – whether Trump can change the rules for birthright citizenship, fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors and exert control over other agencies that Congress set up to be independent.
Trump has predicted the justices will rule against his executive order directing federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of babies born in the United States if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident.
Only about one-third of the adults surveyed in the Marquette Law School Poll said the court should uphold Trump’s executive order. Nearly 7 in 10 said the court should rule that the order is unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment makes all those born in the United States citizens.
Significant majorities also do not want Trump to be able to remove a member of the Federal Reserve and want checks on the president’s ability to fire leaders of other independent agencies, according to the survey.
Based on comments by the justices when those cases were argued, however, a majority of the 6-3 conservative court is expected to side with Trump on the issue of presidential control over some independent agencies. But a majority seemed unlikely to let Trump fire Cook from the Federal Reserve and unlikely to uphold his birthright citizenship executive order.
The public is divided on two of the biggest decisions the court has already handed down that do not directly involve Trump.
That includes an April decision gutting a key provision of a landmark civil rights act.
Told that the court ruled that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not require states to create congressional districts where nonwhite voters are in the majority, 49% of adults surveyed favored the ruling while 51% opposed it.
In March, the court rejected Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for young people, ruling that it infringed on the free speech rights of a Christian counselor.
Of the adults surveyed, 52% favored that decision and 48% opposed it.
There was a bigger divide on another LGBTQ+ issue the court is still deciding — whether states can prevent transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams.
More than 6 in 10 adults said the courts should uphold such bans. But 37% disagreed.
The nationwide survey of 1,001 adults was conducted May 20-26. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
