From President George Washington through President Barack Obama, the Senate confirmed nearly 3,800 judges to the U.S. District Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court. Only six percent of them had so much as a single vote cast against them in the Senate confirmation process.
But that was then; this is Trump.
Fully 70 percent of those nominated to the federal bench by President Trump have faced opposition from Senate Democrats. Putting it another way, in well over two centuries of American history, nearly half (43 percent) of all Senate votes cast against judicial nominees have come in the last 33 months.
This massive opposition is no reflection on the quality of nominees being put forward by the president. A higher percentage of Trump than Obama nominees, for example, have received a “well qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. This despite multiple studies showing that the ABA is systematically biased against Republican nominees.