Campaigning for the Supreme Court: the dynamics of public opinion on the Thomas nomination

Little of the considerable research devoted to the connections between the Supreme Court and the mass public has addressed popular attitudes toward nominees to the High Bench. Here we hope to stimulate interest in this important and understudied area by examining the wellsprings of opinionation and sentiment toward the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas. Relying on data from CBS News/New York Times polls and using statistical models of opinion-holding and support for Thomas' confirmation, we examine whether citizen attitudes were grounded in policy preferences, political orientations of long-standing such as partisanship, ideological convictions, group ties, and presidential approval. We also develop and directly link a model of the formation of opinion toward the nomination a model of activation, in which citizens assimilate information and form an opinion - with a model of sentiment, in which citizens develop a positive or negative feeling toward the nominee. We report dramatic and systematic shifts in the sources of opinion mobilization which accord well with the intuitive expectations that flow from the temporal order of events and controversies associated with this battle. We find, among the mobilized, substantial and enduring associations between sentiment toward Thomas and summary political orientations, attitudes toward the president, and policy preferences. We also see shifts in the demography of Thomas' support; and, again, these findings accord well with expectations derived from the dynamics of the conflict over the nomination.