New Poll: 80 Percent of Voters Disagree With Trump's Plan to Jail Americans for Criticizing the Supreme Court
But lack of media coverage of comments means most people haven't heard about Trump's threats
TO: Interested Parties
FR: Take Back The Court Action Fund
RE: New polling finds 80 percent of Americans reject Donald Trump’s threats to imprison Americans for criticizing the Supreme Court
Amid record-high public disapproval of the Supreme Court following a series of ethics scandals and unpopular decisions trampling the rights and imperiling the well-being of Americans, Donald Trump – who appointed a third of the justices on the court – has repeatedly threatened to punish American citizens who criticize the court and its justices and other judges.
In an August rally in Montana, Trump said of people who criticize judges “What they are doing is, in my opinion, totally illegal.” Later that month in Pennsylvania Trump said people who criticize “our judges and our justices should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that.” In September Trump said of critics of the Trump-appointed judge who dismissed an indictment of Trump for mishandling classified documents, “I think it should be illegal; that’s what the DOJ should look into.” That all led to another rally in Pennsylvania in which Trump directly threatened to imprison Americans for criticism of the Supreme Court with which he disagrees: “These people should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices.”
Trump’s comments put him at odds with the overwhelming majority of Americans who value free speech rights: In a poll for its “Free Expression in America Post-2020” report, the Knight Foundation found 92 percent of Americans say freedom of speech is “extremely” (63 percent) or “very” (28 percent) important to them – on par with voting rights, and higher than the percentage of Americans who describe freedom of religion and freedom of the press as important to them.1
New Take Back The Court Action Fund polling specifically about Trump’s comments finds 80 percent of likely voters reject Trump’s threats to imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court, with disagreement high among all segments of the electorate – but few Americans are aware of the comments. These findings indicate both a need for the news media to report Trump’s threats more prominently and an opportunity for Trump critics to effectively use his words against him.
Likely voters overwhelmingly reject Trump’s threats to imprison Supreme Court critics
New polling conducted exclusively for Take Back The Court finds that 80 percent of likely voters disagree with Donald Trump’s threats that Americans who criticize the Supreme Court should be imprisoned.2 Disagreement with Trump is high among all segments of the electorate, including Democrats (83 percent), Independents (82 percent) and Republicans (75 percent.)
Lack of media coverage of Trump’s comments has left the public in the dark
In a reflection of the scant media attention Trump’s comments have been given, very few voters are aware of Trump’s threats.3 Only 15 percent of likely voters know Trump has said people who criticize the Court should be put in jail – less than half as many as the 33 percent who wrongly believe Trump endorsed the free speech rights of those who criticize the Court.4 Even among Harris supporters, more people wrongly think Trump endorsed free speech rights than know Trump threatened to jail people for criticizing the Court.
Trump’s threats to jail Supreme Court critics put millions of Americans at risk
Public approval of the Supreme Court has reached an all-time low in recent years, reflecting deep public anger at Court decisions such as the 2022 Dobbs decision repealing abortion rights and disgust with ethics scandals involving several justices. According to 538’s poll average, less than 40 percent of Americans approve of the Court. Marquette University polling finds 55 percent think Supreme Court justices are motivated mostly by politics rather than the law – an increase of 20 percentage points since 2019 – and only 27 percent say the justices have high ethical standards, while 90 percent support enforcing a strict ethics code for the justices.
Millions of Americans have exercised their First Amendment right to criticize the Supreme Court – and are now being threatened with fines and imprisonment by a presidential candidate.
Numbers don’t add up due to rounding.
Methodology: Survey fielded October 11-13, 2024 by Data for Progress. 1,206 likely voters were surveyed via web panel, weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and 2020 recalled vote. The margin of error for Likely Voters associated with the sample is ±3 percentage points. MOE for subgroups is higher.
For example, the New York Times has never reported Trump’s threats to fine or imprison people for criticizing the Supreme Court.
Methodology: Survey fielded October 5-7, 2024 by Data for Progress. 1,245 likely voters were surveyed via web panel, weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and 2020 recalled vote. The margin of error for Likely Voters associated with the sample is ±3 percentage points. MOE for subgroups is higher.
https://open.substack.com/pub/emmettcorbett/p/seven-facts?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=49zugr
The results of the poll were great; the chances that Trump will change his ridiculously anti-American rhetoric and support the most fundamental of the rights granted by the Constitution are essentially nonexistent. For Trump, the Constitution is little more than an impediment to how he really wants to run the country.