TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Fontana, Nicola
AU  - Nannicini, Tommaso
AU  - Snyder, James M
        TI  - Goodbye, Montesquieu: Executive Spillovers in Judicial Elections
        PY  - 2026/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18533
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18533
        AB  - We study whether the partisan affiliation of U.S. state governors affects the outcome of partisan judicial elections. Exploiting close gubernatorial races from 1946 to 2023, we find that electing a Democratic (Republican) governor significantly increases the subsequent vote share of Democratic (Republican) judicial candidates. This executive spillover effect arises despite the formal institutional independence of the judiciary and holds in contexts with similar levels of polarization and partisanship. Our findings show that, under partisan judicial elections, even narrow shifts in executive power can erode the separation of powers, as some voters adjust their judicial choices in response to the partisan control of the executive. This effect is stronger when executive and legislative powers are unified and when the judicial election occurs soon after the governor's race.
        KW  - judicial elections
KW  - partisan alignment
KW  - regression discontinuity
        ER  -