83% of Americans say the president must honor Supreme Court rulings – even the divisive ones

By CNN Newsource

Published February 12, 2025 10:00 pm

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — Even though most Americans don’t like some of the Supreme Court’s highest-profile recent decisions, a new poll Thursday found that a vast majority believe presidents must still honor them.

Eighty-three percent of Americans believe a president is required to follow the Supreme Court’s rulings, according to a Marquette Law School poll that landed as President Donald Trump has faced fierce blowback for questioning the legitimacy of court decisions.

Just under two in 10 respondents said a president has the power to ignore the Supreme Court.

Americans’ general support for the rule of law comes even as 62% oppose the high court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and a similar share disagree with last year’s ruling from the court’s conservatives that granted Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution.

Overall, the poll found that 51% of adults approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing – its highest mark in three years. Americans have more confidence in the court than they do in the presidency, Congress, the Department of Justice and the national news media, according to the poll.

The poll was conducted from January 27 to February 5 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Asked whether he will comply with a slew of court rulings that have temporarily blocked some of his agenda, Trump said on Tuesday that he would.

“Well, I always abide by the courts, and then I’ll have to appeal it – but then what he’s done is he’s slowed down the momentum, and it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books,” Trump said. “So yeah, the answer is I always abide by the courts, always abide by them. And we’ll appeal, but appeals take a long time.”

His vice president, Yale-trained lawyer JD Vance, seemed to toy with fidelity to checks and balances in a tweet earlier in the week.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance wrote in part.

Among adults, 69% – and a majority of both Democrats and Republicans – said the Supreme Court should uphold a Texas law that requires people to prove they are not minors to access porn sites. A decision in that case is expected by the end of June.

More than six in 10 supported the Supreme Court’s decision in January to allow Trump’s sentencing in the New York hush money case.