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Objective: There is substantial evidence that American voters blame or credit the president for the state of the economy when making electoral decisions. However, a variety of findings on economic voting, cognitive biases in information processing, and party polarization indicate that both objective and subjective economic information should become less important to voters as partisan polarization increases. We evaluate whether partisan polarization attenuates the link between economic performance and citizens' votes. Methods: We estimate statistical models of the incumbent party vote shares in U.S. presidential elections from 1952 to 2016 including as predictive terms national partisan polarization (DW‐NOMINATE) and the interaction between polarization and economic growth (annualized second quarter GDP change in election years). Results: We find support for our expectation that greater partisan polarization mitigates the association between economic performance and American election returns. Conclusion: Economic performance exerts less influence on vote choices when parties are highly polarized than when they are not. Also, currently high levels of partisan polarization in the United States indicate elections will remain competitive, even if economic conditions otherwise favor or undermine an incumbent candidate's chances of winning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To inform international discourse about judicial countermajoritarianism, we assess whether decisions enhancing gay rights by Canadian courts increase the media's attention to homosexuality and related topics. Method: We first collect a data set of monthly counts of relevant articles published in two prominent Canadian newspapers and then estimate Markov‐switching models to evaluate whether increases in media attention to homosexuality are coincident with judicial decisions enhancing gay rights in Canada. Results: Each of five landmark gay rights decisions is coincident with a period of heightened media attention to homosexuality. The data show that Canadian newspapers publish nearly twice as many relevant stories during these "active" regimes compared to "inactive" periods. Conclusion: Canadian courts can increase attention to issues in the national media. This result supports a dynamic view of the interaction between courts and democratic majorities in place of the static view of democracy endemic to normative discourse about judicial countermajoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]