loading
loading
The News The winner of Senate control would snatch one of the biggest tangible prizes of the midterms: control over President Donald Trump’s nominees. If Democrats are in charge, don’t expect many of Trump’s picks to move at all. “If the nominees are as crappy as his present ones, very few of them are going to get through. If he sends us a new [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth, I bet he wouldn’t pass the Senate,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told Semafor in a pre-election interview. “It’s the quality of the candidate that matters. Thus far, Trump has a record of notoriously bad candidates.” Democrats are favored to take the House, which would limit big bipartisan breakthroughs on legislation next year. But if Republicans can hold the Senate, they’d at least retain the ability to confirm Trump nominees — most notably, lifetime judicial appointments. Schumer’s comments confirm that Democratic control of the Senate under Trump would turn the battle to confirm Senate nominees into trench warfare, with committee chairmen able to bottle up Trump’s picks easily and Schumer able to simply not put them on the floor. Perhaps a handful of judges would be confirmed, but Cabinet secretaries would face long slogs. There’s also little hope that a Democratic majority would confirm a Supreme Court nominee — should a vacancy arise — after then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s blockade of Merrick Garland during the Obama years. “A Democrat-controlled Senate will without any question block every single one of President Trump’s nominees. This includes every cabinet member and every judge who is committed to upholding the Constitution,” said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo. “[Schumer is] not going to change his playbook of obstruction and opposition.” Know More It’s been more than a decade since the president’s party lost control of the Senate during a midterm election. After the 2014 red wave, Senate Republicans gave former President Barack Obama few lower-level judges, blocked a Supreme Court seat from being filled, and even blocked his attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch, from confirmation until the Senate passed a human trafficking bill. There’s no way around a judicial nominee blockade, but Trump can lean on acting officials in the executive branch. If Republicans do lose Senate control, look for the GOP to use its blunt confirmation tools — including confirming large tranches of nominees — in November and December to accomplish as much as they can before Schumer takes control again. There are currently 27 judicial vacancies at the district level and 10 nominees to fill those, mostly in Republican states. There are also a handful of nominees ready to be confirmed to federal appeals courts. If Republicans hold the chamber, they will probably prioritize judicial appointments for the next two years.
document fetched 2026-10-06 02:56 · canonical https://semafor.com/article/10/05/2026/democratic-controlled-senate-would-confirm-very-few-trump-nominees