President Donald Trump’s administration is stepping up efforts to secure confirmation of federal judges before the end of the year, as uncertainty grows over whether Republicans will retain control of the US Senate after the November 3 midterm elections.
Trump announced 13 judicial nominees over nine days in August while the Senate was on recess. Six of the nominees are scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, while five others are awaiting consideration by the full chamber.
Federal judges are confirmed by a simple majority vote in the Senate.
Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber, but Democrats could gain control after the midterm elections, potentially making it more difficult for Trump to secure further confirmations once the new Senate takes office next year.
“You always approach this with the concern that you could lose control of the Senate,” said Robert Luther, a George Mason University law professor who worked on judicial nominations in the White House Counsel’s Office during Trump’s first term.
Luther and other legal experts said the current push could also be one of Trump’s final major opportunities to shape the federal judiciary, regardless of the Senate election outcome, as the number of judicial vacancies and expected retirements has declined.
“Even with the Supreme Court vacancy, I expect the next two years to be the slowest period for judicial nominations under Trump,” Luther said.
The effort to fill judicial vacancies before a possible change in Senate control is not new. President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats faced a similar situation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Republicans failed to regain control of the Senate that year, allowing Biden to end his presidency with 235 confirmed judges, one more than Trump confirmed during his first term.
Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has secured confirmation of another 54 judges, bringing his appointments across both terms to nearly one-third of the federal bench.
Trump’s judicial appointments have shifted the courts in a more conservative direction, including through his three Supreme Court nominees, who are part of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority.
Since 2021, the Supreme Court has issued major rulings affecting abortion access, affirmative action and gun rights, among other issues.
However, Trump-appointed judges have not always ruled in his favour. Trump criticised his Supreme Court appointees on Tuesday after the justices rejected an administration-backed rule restricting mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections.
Among the nominees appearing before the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday is Zach West, who received praise from conservative legal activists for his work in the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office.
West defended abortion restrictions and argued that Oklahoma could not prevent religious schools from participating in its charter school programme.
Another nominee expected to be considered this month is Arkansas-based US District Judge Lee Rudofsky. The White House has nominated him for the St Louis-based 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Rudofsky issued a key ruling four years ago that weakened a landmark voting rights law. If confirmed, his appointment would give Trump-appointed judges a majority on the appeals court, making it the first of the country’s 13 federal appeals courts to have such a majority.
Rudofsky, West and other nominees did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly criticised judges who have blocked administration policies since he returned to office, as hundreds of lawsuits have challenged his actions.
The White House has also renewed a central objective from Trump’s first term by placing conservative lawyers and Trump allies on federal district and appeals courts across the country.
Many of the appointees are in their late 30s or early 40s and could remain on the bench for decades, potentially influencing legal disputes long after Trump’s presidency.
During Trump’s first term, his judicial appointees, particularly in Texas and North Dakota, repeatedly blocked Biden administration efforts involving immigration policy, student debt relief and LGBTQ+ rights protections.
Senate Democrats have accused some of Trump’s second-term nominees of placing greater emphasis on loyalty to the president. They have cited testimony before the Judiciary Committee in which nominees generally avoided directly saying Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, instead referring to Biden as the “certified” winner.
The White House has rejected that characterisation, saying the nominees were selected based on their qualifications.
“President Trump chooses highly qualified and experienced judicial nominees who have undergone the White House’s thorough vetting process,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
“Whenever judicial vacancies arise, President Trump will nominate highly qualified candidates who uphold the Constitution and respect the rule of law, with the aim of securing swift confirmation.”
Three of Trump’s 13 previous appellate nominees during his second term served as his personal attorneys, including Emil Bove, who is now a judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The other two have also been confirmed.
Many of Trump’s other second-term nominees, however, have backgrounds similar to those of judges he selected during his first administration.
Several are members of the conservative Federalist Society, including West and Courtney Coker, another nominee appearing before the committee on Wednesday.
Coker, a prosecutor, has been nominated to the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, a venue frequently sought by conservative litigants challenging Democratic policies. – Agency report.
