It wasn’t the outcome progressives were hoping for, but in forcing the vice-president to cast a historic tie-breaking vote to confirm Betsy DeVos, the resistance just netted its first cabinet battle victory.

The fundamental outcome, of course, was unaltered. On Tuesday afternoon, DeVos was confirmed as education secretary in the closest vote yet for one of Donald Trump’s nominees. But to set the bar for victory at denying nominees confirmation is to set the bar too high. Only one such rejection has taken place in recent history and even that case study was only as recent as the 1980s.

In eight years in office, Joe Biden never once had to resort to tie-breaking interventions to settle a deadlock vote. Mike Pence did so within his first three weeks, and he did so in a move that marks the first time in 240-plus years of American history that an administration has had to resort to such last-ditch measures to confirm its nominee.

At a glance, it’s peculiar that DeVos became the rallying point for a vast grassroots campaign. Secretary of education is one of the least powerful positions in the cabinet, and education has never been central to Trump’s agenda. And until last month, the Michigan billionaire, who has no personal or professional experience in public education or in government, was a relatively unknown quantity.

But lawmakers don’t choose which nominees spark national outrage – voters do. And following a widely aired confirmation hearing in which DeVos was unable to answer even basic questions about education policy and proceeded to argue – in an instantly viral moment – that guns should be permitted in schools to ward off bear attacks, her nomination became the stage upon which the battle of resistance played out.

It wasn’t just her inexperience that dogged her. It wasn’t even her unfortunate viral soundbite about bears in schools. DeVos’ nomination was simply the perfect storm for progressives and members of the resistance to seize upon.

Why the outpouring around DeVos?

One thing Democrats have failed to anticipate this cycle is what policies hit voters closest to home – particularly those in rural communities. DeVos may not be the most powerful cabinet pick, but she touches things in the lives of average Americans, like school.

Voters may not have a good grasp on how the secretary of state is affecting their day-to-day, but they understand the choices their kids have about public school. Devos’ outspoken hostility to the public school system and support for vouchers, in particular, didn’t sit well with voters in rural communities, many of whom are Republican.

The constituents of the two Republican senators to announce their opposition to DeVos, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, certainly fit that bill. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, in explaining her “no” vote against DeVos, zeroed on the rural-area voter issue specifically. “Growing up in a rural town in Mantador, I know how precious public school education is, especially for students in rural America,” Heitkamp explained in a statement.

Senator Maggie Hassan, who has a child with a disability herself, cited DeVos’ apparent unfamiliarity with Idea, a law protecting students with disabilities. “She seemed very unfamiliar with the law,” Hassan said on MSNBC on Tuesday, adding that some of the vouchers DeVos has supported make kids sign away their rights to Idea to get a voucher. “Then they’re stuck because they don’t have the legal rights to get the services they need,” she added.

Those perspectives come from lawmakers, but they’re channeling the voices of constituents. Teachers’ unions such as the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers successfully amplified their anger, signaling their role among the most powerful bastions of organized labor in the country. But so did activist parent, teacher and student groups, as well as groups advocating for the rights of students with disabilities.

It didn’t help DeVos that our country is still willing to elect inexperienced men but not inexperienced women – at least not without a fight.

Whatever voters’ motivations were, the Capitol switchboard was flooded with calls from around the country from concerned constituents. It was one of the most impressive displays of civic involvement in the workings of the Senate in recent memory.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s office put the average daily number of calls to the Senate last week at 1.5m, and accounts from senators’ personal offices help bear that out.

A staffer for Bob Casey said the senator had received 80,000 letters from constituents, a 900% increase in correspondence over the previous year; Mark Warner said his office had received 41,000 calls specifically in opposition to DeVos; Tim Kaine’s office put the number of letters and calls in opposition to her at 25,000. And on Thursday, Senator Brian Schatz tweeted that the last three days had been the busiest in congressional switchboard history.



This is the same kind of impressive organization we saw in the lead-up to the Women’s March on Washington. And though it may feel like an oversight that Democratic leadership and political higher-ups didn’t seem to anticipate the backlash it was possible to create around DeVos, it also signals the organic origins of the outrage and just how powerful the grassroots resistance movement in America may become.

Trump can still say he won, and being Trump, he will. But it’s worth remembering that this perfect storm of voter outrage was the triumph of grassroots organizing. And that is worth celebrating – despite the outcome.