The Supreme Court is supposed to be insulated from most political pressures. In fact, one of its primary roles is to serve as a counterweight to the will of the majority in cases where policies might impinge on the rights of other citizens.

Yet it is common to hear criticism that the court is out of step with the American public. How well does the court actually represent the views of the American public? And how might this change with the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a more solidly conservative jurist than Anthony Kennedy?

Historically, it’s been difficult to determine the precise ideological position of the court. Standard measures of the political preferences of citizens are quite different in nature from the positions taken by justices on Supreme Court cases.

But we came up with a way to compare the ideological position of the Supreme Court and its individual justices with the views of Americans. In our study, we asked ordinary Americans to describe their views on issues that had recently been decided by the court.