7 - Presidents and Public Opinion

Summary

Chapter 7 examines the relationship between presidential discussions of Supreme Court decisions and public opinion in two ways. First, we investigate whether presidents can influence the public’s views of the Supreme Court and its decisions through their public remarks. Second, we analyze whether presidents lead or follow public attitudes when they take positions on the Court’s cases. Using an original survey experiment, we find that presidents can shape public support for the Court’s decisions in low-salience issue areas, but they have a hard time molding public opinion in high-salience cases, such as immigration. We further find that presidents tend to take positions on the Court’s decisions that are congruent with public opinion on the issue areas featured in those cases, indicating that presidents are democratically responsive actors.