Two-thirds of Americans want term limits for Supreme Court justices
Our new poll finds majority support for structural reforms to the Supreme Court, Puerto Rico statehood, and limits on the pardon power
This article presents data from the February 2026 Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, conducted February 18-20 among 1,566 U.S. adults. The margin of error is +/- 2.5 percentage points. See the full poll release and methodology for details.
Many Americans support structural reforms that would limit presidential power, make the Senate friendlier to Democrats, and decrease the average tenure of U.S. Supreme Court justices, according to a new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll fielded Feb. 18–20, 2026.
In recent years, calls for several reforms to government institutions and elections — collectively called “structural reforms” in this article — have become increasingly prominent in certain circles of the Democratic Party. They are meant to level the playing field against what reformers see as structural advantages that favor Republicans — such as the small-state bias of the Senate and Electoral College, and the outsized influence of justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.
This poll tests support for establishing term limits for Supreme Court justices, expanding the size of the Court from 9 to 13 justices, granting statehood to Puerto Rico and DC, and establishing limits on the presidential pardon power. Every proposal except DC statehood earned majority or plurality support.
Our poll suggests that Americans’ appetite for structural reform is real, broad, and largely untapped by either party. While the reforms with the most obvious partisan implications are not clearly popular (statehood for Washington, DC, for example), several other proposals reformers have been pushing for years are far more popular than the political establishment seems to think.
65% support term limits for Supreme Court justices
Currently, justices who are appointed to the Supreme Court are appointed for life. Critics have suggested that the practice of making lifetime appointments to the country’s highest court has multiple problems, including an aging bench, the randomness of when vacancies occur, and partisanship when vacancies stack up in close succession to one another; since politics in America has become so polarized, people are concerned that each vacancy has become a zero-sum war with generational consequences.
So, naturally, term limits have been proposed as a remedy. We asked our sample of U.S. adults whether they would support or oppose a law that limited each judge to a shorter term of 18 years so that every president is able to nominate at least one justice (and probably two) to the Court for each term they serve. In total, 65% of respondents said they would support the proposal, while 15% opposed it (and 20% said they were “not sure” how they felt).
Other polls have found even higher levels of support when asking generically about “term limits” without specifying a length — PRRI found 75% support in an August-September 2025 survey, and a Fox News poll found 78% in July 2024.
Our poll suggests even Republicans — who have appointed 6 of the Court’s nine justices — support term limits. While the proposal earns 78% support from Democrats, it is also favored by 61% of independents and 56% of Republicans — making this one of those rare issues where majorities of all three groups agree.
Trust in the Court has been declining for decades. Several factors are contributing to its demise. The first is partisanship; Democrats remain furious over decisions, such as the Dobbs decision, from a 6-3 conservative majority they view as illegitimate. The second is ethics scandals — Justice Thomas, for example, accepted undisclosed luxury trips and gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow, and Justice Alito failed to disclose a fishing vacation paid for by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer who later had cases before the Court.
A third problem is Donald Trump, whose response to the Court’s ruling striking down his tariffs — calling Gorsuch and Barrett “an embarrassment to their families” — landed right at the end of our survey field period. When even the president who appointed a third of the bench is delegitimizing the institution, it’s no surprise that two-thirds of the public wants to change how it works.
Voters support statehood for Puerto Rico, reject DC
We also tested support for four other proposed structural reforms that have been pitched as reducing Republicans’ power in the Senate and SCOTUS, and which would rein in the president’s pardon power. Here’s how they stacked up (in order of net popularity):
Limit the presidential pardon power: 56% of adults, according to our new poll, support placing limits on the president’s power to grant pardons and clemency for federal crimes. 24% of respondents were opposed in our survey, while 20% said they were not sure. Even Republicans supported this one, by a sizable +22-point margin.
Puerto Rico statehood: 51% support and 24% oppose admitting Puerto Rico as a state. Adding the territory as the 51st state is just barely net negative with Republicans, at -3, but independents and Democrats pull the overall support above 50% by favoring statehood by 21 and 55 points, respectively.
Court expansion (from 9 to 13 justices): 39% of adults support adding 4 new justices to the country’s highest court, according to our new survey. In contrast, 32% oppose and 29% are not sure how they feel. While this is technically net popular with a plurality of supporters, it’s nowhere near the popularity of term limits. A high “don’t know” percentage can be indicative of soft support, too. At just +3 with independents and -24 among Republicans, this is one of the least popular proposed reforms.
DC statehood: Finally, 32% support and 36% oppose adding Washington, D.C. as a state, while 32% are not sure. DC statehood is the only item here where opposition actually exceeds support, and is also the only proposal that is net unpopular with independents.
The 19-point gap between Puerto Rico (51%) and DC (32%) statehood is likely largely attributable to the perceived electoral consequences of each new state. Washington, D.C. voted 90% for Kamala Harris in 2024, while Puerto Rico has a genuinely competitive political system with a Republican-affiliated governor, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon. Puerto Rico has also moved closer to statehood on its own terms: voters on the island have endorsed it in multiple referenda, most recently in 2020 and 2024, giving the proposal a democratic mandate that also fits the official process of territories becoming states. That combination of bipartisan plausibility and bottom-up momentum makes it a much easier sell to mainland voters.
For Democrats hoping to build a mandate for enduring structural reform, the lesson is that sequencing and framing matter enormously. SCOTUS term limits, statehood for Puerto Rico, and pardon limits could plausibly attract bipartisan coalitions, which will be a necessary precondition unless Democrats win a dominant majority in the House, Senate, and White House in 2026-2028. Court packing and DC statehood, on the other hand, are not popular with swing voters — at least not yet.
Americans think their country needs major changes
One other persistent finding in our surveys is that Americans are extremely frustrated with the way things are going in the country. In our February Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, 52% of Americans said things are going poorly in the country, and major, disruptive changes are needed. Just 10% said things were going well. Back in January, 77% of adults said explicitly that the political system needed major changes.
Our poll tested support for several proposals that could abate some of that frustration. And term limits for Supreme Court justices and limits on the president’s pardon power, in particular, could go a long way toward making Americans feel the government is more responsive to their concerns — and less corrupt.
Thinking about election strategy, these reforms could also help parties appeal to voters who are disengaged and disaffected. In my February 18 Deep Dive on anti-system voters, I found that Trump won in 2024 not because Americans embraced Trumpism, but largely because they were furious at the system itself.
A party that champions term limits or pardon reform could speak directly to those voters, who are spread across the ideological spectrum. At 65% and 56% support, respectively, these two reforms are more popular than virtually any policy the current administration has implemented — and poll better than almost anything either party is currently running on.
For more, see the full topline release and methodology for this month’s poll.
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The thing with DC statehood is that people by and large aren't actually familiar with the issue.
Years ago, I was in a bar in New Orleans, and the bartender asked where I was from. I told him DC, and he responded, "Oh, so like Bethesda?" Many Americans simply have no idea that DC is a real city with real neighborhoods and families that have lived there for generations. They certainly don't understand that it has a bigger population than some states, and no representation in Congress. I'm optimistic that if it actually became a serious national conversation, people would come around to the idea.
That said, I also think Maryland retrocession is worth considering. It's not ideal, but it's better than having to worry about the kinds of stuff the District has been put through under the second Trump Administration, or worse. And, historically, it's had some Republican support.
expand the Court to 19, create 19 Circuits (in place of the current ones with California and Texas each their own circuit), reorganize DCs with no single judge districts/divisions, and appoint many more appellate and DC judges. Plan for doing this in the first few months of a new administration. Add DC, Puerto Rico, and other territories as states. Assumes control of Congress as well (obvs.).