The Supreme Court’s Partisan Composition Affects How Americans Evaluate Nominees: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment

Abstract We hypothesize that the public assesses U.S. Supreme Court nominees in light of the contemporaneous Court’s partisan composition. In a preregistered conjoint experiment ( n = 9,895), we find that Democrats and Republicans weigh nominee partisanship more heavily when their party is losing the Court and less heavily when their party already enjoys a secure majority. Consistent with affective polarization and threat-based political psychology, however, they care just as much about partisanship when the Court is split as when the other party enjoys a strong majority – even though the new Justice would swing the Court only in the former scenario.