Americans tend to make decisions about Supreme Court Justices based on the decisions they make. For a brief period after he cast the deciding vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act, Democrats thought more highly of John Roberts than Republicans did. That is no longer the case. Republicans like Roberts much more than Democrats do.
Women have a much better assessment than men do of one of the women on the Court. 52% of men have a favorable view of Sonia Sotomayor; 67% of women do. Women are slightly more positive than men are about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and there are few gender differences when it comes to the third female Justice, Elena Kagan.
Sotomayor also gets overwhelmingly favorable assessments from Hispanics: 75% of them are favorable towards Sotomayor. That positive rating doesn’t happen when African-Americans are asked to evaluate Clarence Thomas, the only black on the Supreme Court. Twice as many blacks have an unfavorable view of him than are favorable towards him.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member