Gallup has released data showing that partisan evaluations of the Supreme Court “flip flop” after a presidential election. Essentially, partisans like the Court better when their president is in control. Now, in 2000-2001, one might attribute these trends to the Court’s decision in Bush _v_. Gore. But the same is true in 2008-2009, and no such event has happened. I don’t think that the Sotomayor nomination matters much.
This is reminiscent of how Democrats and Republicans changed their evaluations of Bernanke after the November election.