U.S. District Court Nominees Confirmed During the First Year of the Second Trump Presidency: Comparative Overview and Statistics
This Insight provides information related to the number of U.S. district court nominees confirmed during the first calendar year of the second Trump presidency (2025), as well as information about the number of district court nominees confirmed during the first years of other presidencies from 1953 to 2021. This Insight also provides additional statistics about district court nominees confirmed in 2025 and compares these statistics with those from the first years of several recent presidencies. An additional Insight provides similar information for U.S. circuit court nominees.
For the purposes of this Insight, a President's first year is measured as the period from January 20 to December 31 of his first calendar year in office. So, for example, the first year of the second Trump presidency is measured as beginning on January 20, 2025.
Number of Confirmed Nominees
Overall, during the period from 1953 to 2025, the median number of district court nominees confirmed during the first year of a presidency was approximately 21 (ranging from a low of 6 nominees confirmed in 2017, during the first year of the first Trump presidency, to a high of 45 nominees confirmed in 1961, during the first year of the Kennedy presidency).
President Trump had 20 district court nominees confirmed during the first year of his second presidency. As shown by Figure 1, this is more than three times as many district court nominees as confirmed during the first year of his first presidency (2017) and slightly below the number of district court nominees confirmed during the first years of the George W. Bush and Carter presidencies (22 and 21, respectively).
Figure 1 also identifies, for each presidency, the first and final dates during a President's first year in office when a district court nominee was confirmed by the Senate. The earliest date a nominee was confirmed was February 25 (during the first year of the Nixon presidency), while the latest date a nominee was confirmed was December 24 (during the first year of the Obama presidency).
In general, for earlier presidencies included in Figure 1, the first district court nominee confirmed during a President's first year in office was confirmed during the first half of the calendar year (prior to June 30). For more recent presidencies, the first district court nominee confirmed during a President's first year in office was confirmed during the second half of the year—either in July or September (with the exception of the Biden presidency, when the first district court nominee was confirmed in early June). During the Clinton and Obama presidencies, the Senate was considering Supreme Court nominations during the summer months of 1993 and 2009, which may have delayed consideration of each President's first district court nominee.
For 7 of the 12 presidencies included in Figure 1, the final district court nominee to be confirmed during a President's first year in office was confirmed in December. For another 3 presidencies, the final district court nominee was confirmed in November.
The number of district court nominees confirmed during a President's first year in office has likely been influenced, in part, by the number of district court vacancies that existed when he assumed office; the number of vacancies that occurred during his first year; whether his Administration prioritized filling vacancies for other types of judgeships (e.g., circuit court judgeships); and the priorities of the Senate majority party.
Length of Time from Nomination to Confirmation
The average length of time from nomination to confirmation for the 20 nominees confirmed in 2025 was 85 days (the median was 80 days). This was the shortest average length of time from nomination to confirmation for district court nominees confirmed during the first year of a presidency for the 2001-2025 period (the second-shortest average was 102 days in 2001).
Figure 2 shows the number of district court nominees confirmed within a specified number of days during the first year of presidencies from 2001 to 2025.
Of the 20 nominees confirmed in 2025, 13 (65%) were confirmed within 90 days of being nominated and 4 (20%) were confirmed within 91 to 120 days of being nominated. Among the 20 nominees, the shortest length of time from nomination to confirmation was 49 days, while the longest length of time was 134 days.
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Figure 2. Length of Time from Nomination to Confirmation for U.S. District Court Nominees Confirmed During the First Year of a Presidency (2001-2025) |
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Source: Congressional Research Service. |
Number of Nay Votes Received When Confirmed
For the period 2001-2025, Figure 3 shows the range of nay votes received by a President's district court nominees when confirmed by the Senate during his first year in office.
Most district court nominees confirmed during the first year of a presidency from 2001 to 2025 were confirmed by roll call vote—specifically 75 of 86, or 87%, of nominees. The most recent nominees confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent during the first year of a presidency were Dolly M. Gee and Richard Seeborg, both confirmed on December 24, 2009.
Of the 20 district court nominees confirmed during the first year of the second Trump presidency, 16 (80%) received more than 40 nay votes when confirmed (with 9 of those nominees having received more than 45 nay votes). In contrast, during the first year of the first Trump presidency, each of the 6 confirmed district court nominees received 20 or fewer nay votes (with 5 of those nominees having received 10 or fewer nay votes when confirmed).
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Figure 3. Number of Nay Votes Received by U.S. District Court Nominees Confirmed During the First Year of a Presidency (2001-2025) |
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Source: Congressional Research Service. |
For related historical information about nay votes received by district court nominees at the time of confirmation, see CRS Report R45622, Judicial Nomination Statistics and Analysis: U.S. Circuit and District Courts, 1977-2024.