Why most of Trump's Cabinet picks will get confirmed by the Senate

In the wake of his November victory, President-elect Donald Trump has already had a fairly messy rollout of his Cabinet nominees. His first choice for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew from consideration, and some of his other picks have their own personal scandals or controversies to overcome in the Senate confirmation process.

Yet despite some less than optimal headlines, the Republican-controlled Senate will likely confirm nearly all of Trump's Cabinet nominees and picks for other key positions. Republicans hold a 53-to-47 majority in the next Senate, so if the GOP remains relatively unified, most of Trump's nominees will get across the finish line. And with senators from the two parties now farther apart ideologically than they've ever been in modern times, almost all GOP senators will back Trump's choices — and most Democrats will probably oppose them.

None of this precludes further developments that could lead another nominee to withdraw due to controversy or scandal, or that one nominee could go down to defeat on the Senate floor — something that hasn't happened since 1989. But considering Trump's especially dominant sway within his party as well as those broader trends, it's easy to see how the Senate could confirm even some of his most controversial picks.

Nominees face more opposition, but senators stick with their parties

Cabinet confirmation votes used to be a formality; throughout most of the 20th century, presidents' Cabinet nominees were typically confirmed unanimously or near-unanimously. But over the past 30 years, the amount of opposition to presidents' nominees to Cabinet posts and certain positions that have been or are currently considered Cabinet-level* has distinctly increased. President Joe Biden's nominees had the second-highest number of total votes against them across all confirmation votes in the Senate during his nearly four years in office. This puts him second only to Trump during the president-elect's first term, when many of his nominees encountered substantial opposition.

Of course, Trump's turnover-prone first administration had a record number of nominees for Cabinet and Cabinet-level posts, so he also had more opportunities for the Senate to cast votes against his choices. Still, we can see an upward trend beyond Trump, too. The 25 Senate roll call votes for Biden's nominees was similar to the 23 that former President Barack Obama had during his second term and the 22 that former President George H.W. Bush had during his four years in office. But Biden's Cabinet-level selections produced 634 "no" votes, whereas Obama's generated 420, and Bush's sparked fewer than 100.

Fact is, confirmation votes have grown more partisan and more contentious over time. We can see this if we break down the average number of "no" votes cast against each president's nominees by whether they came from their own party's senators or from the opposing party. Perhaps unsurprisingly, votes against nominees are up thanks almost entirely due to growing opposition from the party not in the White House. Inversely, senators from the president's party hardly ever vote against Cabinet-level nominees.

With 53 senators in the next Congress, Republicans can afford up to three defections and still win votes via Vice President-elect JD Vance's tiebreaking vote. But in recent times, Cabinet-level nominees have faced an average of less than one vote in opposition from senators of the president's party. Biden's nominees averaged about 25 "no" votes during his one term, but practically all of those came from Republicans. Similarly, Trump's first term saw an average of about 29 "no" votes per nominee, yet almost all came from Democrats. It is true that more controversial nominees who might inspire more intraparty opposition don't necessarily make it to the floor, as the withdrawal of nominees has become more common. Still, we have to go back to the 1970s to find any presidential term in which senators from the president's party averaged more than one vote against a nominee.

In light of this trend, it's unsurprising that Democrats moved to eliminate the filibuster for Cabinet selections in 2013, at the start of Obama's second term, to make it easier for him to get his nominees. Back then, Democrats held a majority in the Senate but had far fewer than the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster by invoking cloture, which then allows the Senate to move to an up-or-down vote on a nominee. Tellingly, about one-in-six of Obama's picks who faced a roll call vote during his second term received fewer than 60 votes on the Senate floor, while the same was true for about one-fourth of Biden's nominees. The removal of the filibuster limitation certainly aided Trump during his first term, too, and likely will again this time around. Back then, nearly half of Trump's nominees fell short of 60 votes while still winning confirmation.

An increasingly partisan Senate and nomination process

Before the 1970s, presidents rarely got pushback from the Senate on their Cabinet picks. Senators mostly deferred to the president's prerogative, with the view that presidents should have the advisers and administration officials they wanted unless those choices were especially scandalous or unqualified. Consequently, the Senate OK'd most of the president's picks without even taking a recorded vote, simply confirming them by voice vote on the Senate floor — a sign that the selections faced no or extremely limited opposition. During the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, just four of 74 total nominees faced a roll call vote. Outside of denying former Atomic Energy Commission Chair Lewis Strauss the post of commerce secretary in 1959 — which you might be familiar with if you saw the film "Oppenheimer" — the Senate nearly always acquiesced to the president's choices. Fast forward to today, however, and virtually all Cabinet-level nominees now must contend with a recorded vote in the Senate.

A combination of growing executive power and rising political polarization helped bring about this shift. Over the course of the 20th century, the power of the president and the executive branch grew at the expense of Congress, as what became known as the "imperial presidency" rose to hold greater agenda-setting and policy-making prerogatives. In the early 1970s, Congress attempted to rein in the presidency by passing legislation to limit the president's latitude for unilateral military action and compel the president to provide greater transparency regarding executive budgetary practices. At the same time, the Senate also began to more aggressively scrutinize and demonstrate opposition to Cabinet-level appointments. To wit, across former President Richard Nixon's roughly one and a half terms in office, one-third of his nominees (15 of 45) faced a roll call vote, a major change from his immediate predecessors.

Around the same time, the two major political parties began to become more ideologically coherent and started to move apart from each other, a process that has continued to this day. Conservatives moved more clearly into the Republican camp, while liberals shifted into the Democrats' corner, changes that brought with them more distinct policy differences and greater disdain for the opposition. This produced a growing divide between the ideological stances of Democratic and Republican senators, as shown by Voteview.com's DW-NOMINATE measure, which uses senators' voting records to place them on a continuum from -1 (most liberal) to 1 (most conservative). The gap between the average senator from each party has increased as Democrats have shifted to the left and, especially, Republicans have swung to the right.

In this environment, nominations for Cabinet-level posts take longer and face more opposition than they once did. Consider how much longer it takes the Senate to finish confirming most of the high-profile secretariats for the 15 executive departments in a newly elected president's Cabinet. Through former President Ronald Reagan's first term, most newly elected presidents had their department heads confirmed within just a couple of weeks of taking office — i.e., by early February. But since then, each incoming president other than George W. Bush has taken until March at the earliest to fill out these top posts; Obama and Trump even took until late April. And this happened even though every elected president from Reagan to Biden (except the elder Bush) entered the White House with his party at least narrowly controlling the Senate.

Trump's special flavor of party loyalty

Now, this historical data doesn't mean that the next Senate absolutely will behave the same way. The controversial nature of some of Trump's choices, such as nominating vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, could brook enough opposition even within the GOP to stall out some picks. However, this is where there could be an especially impactful interaction between the increasingly polarized nomination process and Trump's particularly strong hold on the Republican Party.

Pricing in increased pushback from the opposition party, members of the president's party now face greater pressure than ever to confirm nominees. Take the ongoing debate over former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump's choice for secretary of defense. Hegseth faces allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse. These sorts of personal scandals have precipitated the failure or withdrawal of many past nominees. In fact, the last time the Senate outright rejected a Cabinet pick involved both similar issues and the same secretariat: In March 1989, former Sen. John Tower's nomination to become George H.W. Bush's defense secretary failed in the Democratic-controlled Senate, driven in part by allegations of alcoholism and womanizing.

Yet enough Republican senators may back Hegseth for him to join the Cabinet. The delicate position of GOP Sen. Joni Ernst exemplifies how. Ernst, who sits on the Armed Services Committee that will handle Hegseth's nomination, is the first female combat veteran in the Senate, and she also disclosed in 2019 that she'd been sexually assaulted in the past. Earlier this month, she expressed skepticism toward Hegseth's nomination, telling Fox News that she hadn't yet decided to back him. But Ernst is also up for reelection in red-leaning Iowa in 2026. Following a whirlwind of criticism from Trump and his allies, along with threats of a possible primary challenge, Ernst expressed a more favorable view of Hegseth's nomination.

Trump's Cabinet-level nominees will face substantial opposition in the Senate, especially compared with past presidencies. However, there's ample reason to think that, when push comes to shove, most Republicans will vote for his picks for most offices — if not just about all of them. With 53 seats in the next Senate, the GOP is well positioned to do Trump's bidding. Otherwise, incumbent senators may have to risk their political careers to oppose some of Trump's selections.

Footnotes

*This analysis includes all floor votes for the leadership posts of the 15 current Cabinet departments (attorney general and the secretaries of agriculture, commerce, defense, education, energy, health and human services, homeland security, housing and urban development, interior, labor, state, transportation, treasury and veterans affairs), nine other positions that are currently considered "Cabinet-level" (CIA director, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, director of national intelligence, director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, administrator of the Small Business Administration, ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. trade representative) and six positions that had Cabinet status at one time (administrator of the General Services Administration, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, director of the Office of Personnel Management, postmaster general and secretary of health, education and welfare).