U.S. Supreme Court Approval Survey Data Before and After Dobbs Ruling

Rolling cross-sectional survey data on U.S. Supreme Court job approval and confidence, collected before and after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 and extended through 2024. The dataset was created by Brandon Bartels for Public Opinion Quarterly and examines the collapse of presidential copartisanship effects. It shows partisan divisions reaching historic highs, with Democratic approval dropping to a record low of 14%.

Use Cases

• Modeling changes in Supreme Court approval based on landmark rulings.
• Analyzing the breakdown of presidential copartisanship effects in public opinion.
• Tracking partisan polarization trends in institutional confidence over time.
• Forecasting implications for Supreme Court legitimacy and decision-making.

Strengths

• Data extends through 2024, providing recent coverage.
• Includes surveys before and after the high-salience Dobbs decision.
• Contains a specific, record-low approval figure (14%) for Democrats.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Brandon Bartels, Public Opinion Quarterly

Collection Method

Rolling cross-sectional surveys

Time Range

Surveys before and after 2022, data extended through 2024

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-17 10:59:53; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States