Not all Policy Losses Are the Same: How Judge–Public Co‐Partisanship Shapes Public Perceptions of the Court following a Judicial Policy Loss

Abstract

We examine how judge–public co‐partisanship conditions the effects of policy losses on approval of the court and perceptions of the court as political and legal. We use a repeated measure vignette experiment to examine the within‐respondent change in court approval and perceptions of the court as political and legal. We find that whether the deciding judge is a co‐partisan or out‐partisan crucially shapes federal court approval, perceived legality, and perceived politicization of the federal courts after the loss. These findings suggest the costs of judicial decisions depend not only on policy disagreement but also on partisan alignment, underscoring the need to situate court outputs within their larger political context. Additionally, we also extend previous work on the Supreme Court by showing that similar effects are found when the court is lower in the judiciary hierarchy.