Donald Trump is starting his second term in a familiar place: with a trifecta. Republicans will also control the House and Senate. Just as he took office in 2017.
Speaker Mike Johnson said, “We all look back and recognize that the Republican Party was not quite ready for that moment. We are not going to make those mistakes again.”
Here’s why, these senators are sorted by how often they vote with each other.
This is the 115th Senate, which began in 2017 during Trump’s first term. The further to the left they are, the more likely they are to vote with Democrats.
The further to the right, the more likely they are to vote with Republicans. For example, here are the senators who were not the only ones to vote against the bipartisan spending bill to end the government shutdown. These Republicans vote with Democrats the least.
There’s a similar narrative on the Democratic side. For example, here are the senators who voted against many of Trump’s cabinet nominees, and here in the middle are senators like Joe Manchin, who was the only Democrat in 2018 to vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Lisa Murkowski, the only Republican not to.
If we go back to the last session, we have data from the 118th Senate, which just ended, and when you compare it to the 115th, you see that there are fewer members in the center, and importantly, these senators will not be part of the 119th Congress that Trump will serve in his second term.
The center of Congress has really become hollow. You have people like Jon Tester who lost his race and they won’t be around anymore. Mitt Romney decided not to run again.
Same thing for Independent Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. We need to stop demonizing each other and arguing about our ideas. That’s fine, but not the personalities and so there’s going to be a very, very narrow middle ground that really consists of Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.
But in general, Republicans and Democrats have each retreated to their own camps, and so the chances of making a deal are much lower. Those camps have shifted too.
Let’s look at the Senate and House at the beginning of Trump’s first term. Here’s how many Republican senators and representatives supported Trump in 2016 and how many opposed him.
We had a chance to set the agenda. What’s the most important thing? Obviously, it was the Supreme Court. – The Republican Party basically used Trump to push their agenda.
Their Republican Party wanted lower taxes and used Donald Trump to get those tax cuts. The tables are now turned.
Vote for Trump-supporting conservatives. Many, many lawmakers in Congress right now owe their seats to Trump’s victory, and he’s going to run the agenda now.
Thank you, Mr. President. It’s clear when you look at the people who opposed him and those who supported him in the new Congress in 2024. We are too focused on advancing Donald Trump’s agenda.
There is no daylight between their agenda and what they envision and what we envision for the House. Speaker Mike Johnson came into office with the narrowest majority in decades.
He started with 220 seats in theory, but that’s dwindling very quickly. So effectively, Mike Johnson, if he’s going to pass a bill along party lines, he has to have every single Republican on the board.
If Republicans aren’t united, our agenda falls apart and makes things even more complicated.
When Speaker Johnson has a vote, everyone has to physically be there to vote. Something as small as a hospital stay could derail Speaker Mike Johnson’s majority, and that, in addition to the political problems and the lack of moderates in the Senate, will make it even harder for Senate Majority Leader John Thune to reach consensus.
We look forward to working with our colleagues in the House to restore the majority and implement President Trump’s agenda.