Democrats are defending 10 Senate seats in states that President Donald Trump carried in 2016. These 10 incumbents – a.k.a. The Ten – will spend the cycle making some interesting decisions about whether to side with their party or vote with their more Republican-leaning constituents. The Senate hasn’t taken all that many votes on issues of substance in the first four months of the 115th Congress, but they have cast votes for 21 of 23 Trump’s Cabinet nominees and one Supreme Court Justice. Those 22 votes do tell a story. As the table below illustrates, six of Trump’s nominees earned the support of all 10 Democratic incumbents. They were: James Mattis (Defense), John Kelly (Homeland Security), Nikki Haley (Ambassador to the U.N.), Elaine Chao (Transportation), David Shulkin (Veterans Affairs), and Sonny Perdue (Agriculture). Another three – Betsy DeVos (Education), Tom Price (Health and Human Services) and Mick Mulvaney (OMB) – were rejected by all 10 incumbents. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was the only member of The Ten who voted against Dan Coats’ nomination to be Director of National

More from the Cook Political Report

Archives1984-2022
Free
CPR Archives
dw