As a federal judge presses President Donald Trump’s administration over whether it violated an order halting deportations, in a growing clash between the presidency and the judicial branch, more American voters are saying they think the executive branch and the courts have too much power, according to a new NBC News poll.
What’s notable, though, is that the change over the last six years has been driven by Democratic-leaning voters, who have been frustrated at different times by both Trump’s expansive policy agenda this year and the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The new poll was conducted March 7-11, before Trump called for the impeachment of a federal judge who issued an order blocking the deportation of Venezuelan migrants. And as Trump and his allies grow more vocal about policies of his that are getting blocked by courts, it’s possible that there could be significant shifts in how voters weigh the power of the courts and the executive branch.
The NBC News poll found that 43% of registered voters believed the president and the executive branch have too much power, while 39% said the branch’s power is about right and 6% said it has too little power.
Asked the same question about the Supreme Court and the judicial branch, 28% said the branch has too much power, 49% said it has about the right amount of power and 8% said it has too little power.
By comparison, 46% said Congress and the legislative branch have about the right amount of power, 18% said the branch has too much power and 19% said it has too little power.
The share of those who say the executive branch has too much power is higher than the last time NBC News asked the question, in June 2019, as is the share of respondents who say the judicial branch has too much power. (When NBC News last polled this question, the survey included U.S. adults, while the 2025 poll questioned registered voters. Both surveys quizzed respondents on their political leanings, enabling comparison by party over time.)
The share who believe the executive branch has too much power is 7 points higher in the new poll of registered voters than it was among adults in 2019, and the share who believe the judicial branch has too much power is 9 points higher in the most recent survey.
That movement is powered by significant partisan differences, which suggest frustration among Democrats and ambivalence among Republicans, whose party has been in the White House each of the last two times NBC News asked this question.
Among Democrats, 75% believe the executive branch has too much power (up from 55% of self-identified Democrats in June 2019). By comparison, 45% of independents and just 15% of Republicans agree.
Debates about executive power have dominated the political discussion in the early months of Trump’s second term, as Trump and his allies have pushed the limits of the office, raising novel legal questions and accompanying court challenges.
Plaintiffs in cases relating to the administration’s push to cut workers and halt aid spending have accused officials of sidestepping court rulings. A federal judge ruled in February that the administration violated a court order temporarily blocking a sweeping funding freeze. A Federal Emergency Management Agency official told subordinates in February to freeze grant funding despite an order directing them otherwise.
This week, a federal judge admonished the Justice Department over the administration’s weekend deportation flights that it’s justifying based on a rarely invoked 18th-century law. Trump has called for the judge to be impeached for blocking his deportation orders, provoking a rare response from Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts released a brief statement Tuesday in which he said that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
It’s the latest development in a story that’s been simmering for weeks in Washington. Democrats pressed Justice Department nominees last month as to whether a president can defy a court order, and both Vice President JD Vance and Trump adviser Elon Musk have raised questions on social media about the extent of judges’ authority to restrain Trump’s actions.
Thirty-one percent of Democrats say the courts have too much power (up from 17% of self-identified Democrats in 2019), while 27% of independents and 25% of Republicans agree. This significant increase among Democrats, especially when compared with independents and Republicans, comes after years of liberal criticism of the Supreme Court over decisions including the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The findings also follow calls from then-President Joe Biden to seek reforms on the court and a push from progressives to add more justices to the Supreme Court as a way of shifting its political balance of power.
Meanwhile, the share of people who believe Congress has too much power is lower across all political affiliations compared to 2019 — a 7-point shift among Republicans and independents, as well as a 3-point decrease among Democrats.
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