Threats to the independence of central banks (CBI) are emerging in many countries after central banks have hiked interest rates. While existing literature has extensively documented conflicts between elected politicians and independent central bankers, underscoring the importance of maintaining the political independence of central banks, we know surprisingly little about what (if anything) the public thinks about CBI. We hypothesize that support for CBI is influenced by citizens’ limited understanding of central bank governance and their beliefs about who will gain control over monetary policy if independence is reduced. We expect that, when informed that the President would gain more influence, respondents’ support for CBI will increase. Further, we argue that support for CBI hinges on which party holds the presidency. When a co-partisan (out-partisan) is President, respondents should favor reduced (increased) independence. Our expectations are confirmed by a preregistered survey experiment and a pre-post-election test. Informing respondents that the Presidency will gain influence if CBI is reduced and, in separate tests, altering expectations of co-partisan presidential election victory alter attitudes on CBI. Further, attitudes toward CBI shift post-election conditional on partisanship. From a policy perspective, our findings indicate that CBI has an important institutional function as a check-and-balance on government power, safeguarding price and macro-financial stability during intense political disagreement along partisanship lines.