Replication Data for: How Political Contestation over Judicial Nominations Polarizes Americans’ Attitudes toward the Supreme Court

Contemporary U.S. Supreme Court nominations are unavoidably and inevitably political. Although observers worry that political contestation over nominations undermines support for qualified nominees and threaten the Court's legitimacy, little empirical evidence addresses these claims. We argue that political contestation over judicial nominations provides cues which shape the public's impressions about nominees and the Court and polarizes public opinion across partisan lines. Data from a conjoint experiment administered in the first days of the Trump presidency support our argument. Political rhetoric attributed to President Trump and Senate Democrats substantially polarized partisans' views of nominees and evaluations of the Court's legitimacy, with Republicans [Democrats] expressing significantly more [less] favorable attitudes. Additional analyses suggest that contestation generates divergent partisan responses by affecting views about the nominee's impartiality. These findings challenge existing perspectives that depict attitudes toward the judiciary as resistant to partisan considerations and have important implications for the Court's legitimacy in a polarized era.

当代美国最高法院大法官提名不可避免地具有政治性。尽管有观察人士担忧，围绕提名的政治争议会削弱公众对合格提名人的支持，并威胁最高法院的合法性，但目前尚无实证研究对这些主张进行验证。本文认为，司法提名过程中的政治争议会提供认知线索，塑造公众对提名人及最高法院的印象，并引发公众舆论沿党派立场极化。本研究使用特朗普执政初期开展的联合分析实验（conjoint experiment）所得数据，验证了上述论点。归属于特朗普总统与参议院民主党人的政治言论显著加剧了党派人士对提名人的看法以及对最高法院合法性评价的分歧：共和党[民主党]人士对此表现出显著更积极[更消极]的态度。进一步分析显示，政治争议通过影响公众对提名人公正性的看法，引发了党派间的差异化反应。本研究结论挑战了现有认为公众对司法机构的态度不受党派因素影响的研究视角，并对极化时代下最高法院的合法性具有重要启示意义。