HPU Poll: Nearly Half of North Carolinians Approve of the U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has a higher favorability rating than Gov. Roy Cooper, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

HIGH POINT, N.C., April 6, 2022 – In the latest High Point University Poll, North Carolinians gave the U.S. Supreme Court a job approval rating of 47%. Only 29% of North Carolina residents said they have read or heard a lot about President Joe Biden’s nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. Of those same respondents, 43% said North Carolina’s U.S. Senators should vote to confirm Judge Jackson, while 28% said those U.S. Senators should vote against her and 29% said they don’t know or unsure.

 The poll also asked North Carolinians whether they approve or disapprove of how the U.S. Supreme Court is handling several issues. More than one-third of respondents said they approve of how the U.S. Supreme Court is handling issues like COVID-19 (39%), presidential elections (39%), interpreting the Constitution (38%), health care (37%), the death penalty (37%) and the rights of the accused (36%).

Less than one-third of North Carolina residents said they approve of how the U.S. Supreme Court is handling issues such as the rights of criminals (32%), immigration (26%), Congressional redistricting (25%) and abortion (25%). The highest percentage of respondents said they disapprove (50%) of the Court’s handling of the immigration issue.  Typically, between about one quarter (23%) and about one-third (35%) of the respondents are unsure about each of the issues.

A little more than one-third of North Carolina residents said the U.S. Supreme Court has too much power (36%). Nearly half (46%) said the Court has just about the right amount, while relatively few (5%) said it has too little power.

Of the people and things that the recent HPU Poll tested, the U.S. Supreme Court has the highest overall favorability rating at 46% followed by Roy Cooper (45%), Elon Musk (44%), Donald Trump (44%), Joe Biden (38%), Mike Pence (36%) and Kamala Harris (34%).  Incumbent U.S. Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr had ratings of 31% and 27% respectively, but 30% or more of North Carolina adults were not familiar enough with them to give an opinion either way.

In regard to Republican and Democratic primary candidates for Richard Burr’s seat in the U.S. Senate, former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory had a favorability rating of 29% with almost a quarter of North Carolina adults unable to rate him. More than half of North Carolinians were not familiar enough to rate candidates Ted Budd (53%), Cheri Beasley (62%) and Mark Walker (67%).

The poll also tested the favorability of Russia and China, which received unfavorable ratings from 78% and 67% of respondents, respectively.

NC residents – Supreme Court Approval (March 2022)

Based on what you know about the U.S. Supreme Court, would you say that you approve or disapprove of the way it is doing its job?

Approve – 47%

Disapprove – 29%

Don’t know/refused/unsure – 24%

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Mar. 18 – Mar. 31, 2022, n = 889 and credibility interval is +/- 3.5%)

NC residents – Supreme Court Issues (March 2022)

Would you say you approve or disapprove of how the U.S. Supreme Court is handling each of these issues? (ISSUES WERE PRESENTED IN RANDOMIZED ORDER)

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Mar. 18 – Mar. 31, 2022, n = 889 and credibility interval is +/- 3.5%)

NC residents – Supreme Court Power (March 2022)

Based on what you know about the U.S. Supreme Court, would you say it has too much power, too little power, or about the right amount of power in U.S. politics?

Too much power – 36%

About the right amount – 46%

Too little power – 5%

Don’t know/refused/unsure – 13%

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Mar. 18 – Mar. 31, 2022, n = 889 and credibility interval is +/- 3.5%)

NC residents – SCOTUS Nomination – Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (March 2022)

How much have you read or heard about President Biden’s nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court?

A lot – 29%

A little bit – 38%

Not much at all – 27%

Don’t know/refused/unsure – 7%

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Mar. 18 – Mar. 31, 2022, n = 889 and credibility interval is +/- 3.5%)

NC residents – SCOTUS Nomination – US Senate Vote (March 2022)

Based on what you have read or heard about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, should North Carolina’s Senators vote to confirm her as an Associate Justice on the Court?

Yes – 43%

No – 28%

Don’t know/refused/unsure – 29%

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Mar. 18 – Mar. 31, 2022, n = 889 and credibility interval is +/- 3.5%)

NC residents – Favorability Ratings (March 2022)

Here is a list of people and things. Please indicate whether you have a favorable or unfavorable view of each of them. (PRESENTED IN A RANDOMIZED ORDER)

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Mar. 18 – Mar. 31, 2022, n = 889 and credibility interval is +/- 3.5%)

The most recent HPU Poll was fielded by live interviewers at the High Point University Survey Research Center calling on March 18 through March 31, 2022, and an online survey was fielded at the same time. The responses from a sample of all North Carolina counties came from 889 adults interviewed online (803 respondents) as well as landline or cellular telephones (86 respondents). The Survey Research Center contracted with dynata, formerly Research Now SSI, to acquire these samples, and fielded the online survey using the SRC’s Qualtrics platform. This is a combined sample of live phone interviews and online interviews. The online sampling is from a panel of respondents, and their participation does not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection. Therefore, it is not appropriate to assign a classic margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 3.3 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.12 (based on the weighting).The data is weighted toward population estimates for age, gender, race/ethnicity, and education based on U.S. Census numbers for North Carolina. The final stage of weighting ensures proper weighting of the online and live interviews. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional errors into the findings of opinion polls. Details from this survey are available here.

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past studies can be found at the Survey Research Center website. The materials online include past press releases as well as memos summarizing the findings (including approval ratings) for each poll since 2010.

The HPU Poll reports methodological details in accordance with the standards set out by AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, and the HPU Survey Research Center is a Charter Member of the Initiative. See more information here.

You can follow the HPU Poll Twitter here.

Dr. Martin Kifer, chair and associate professor of political science, serves as the director of the HPU Poll, and Brian McDonald is the associate director of the HPU Poll.