Donald Trump welcomed the first major triumph of his presidency on Friday when the Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch to the supreme court in an anticlimactic ending to the unprecedented partisan showdown over the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Gorsuch was approved by a vote of 54 to 45 after a marathon three-day hearing, a floor debate that included an all-night protest by a Democratic senator and a historic rules change that allowed his nomination to go forward on a simple majority. The White House said on Friday that Trump would swear in Gorsuch on Monday morning.

In a statement on Friday, Trump hailed Gorsuch’s “historic confirmation”, the first supreme court appointment of his presidency, and said he was the “perfect choice” to serve on the country’s highest court because of his “his judicial temperament, exceptional intellect, unparalleled integrity, and record of independence”.

“As a deep believer in the rule of law, Judge Gorsuch will serve the American people with distinction as he continues to faithfully and vigorously defend our constitution,” Trump said.

Mike Pence presided over the chamber as senators filed in to cast their votes. In the final tally, three Democrats joined Republicans to confirm Gorsuch: Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. One senator, Republican Johnny Isakson of Georgia, did not vote.



The narrow victory, split mostly along party lines, is an illustration of the entrenched political polarization in Washington and an indicator of how future battles over supreme court nominees might be decided. Republicans’ decision to “go nuclear” to bypass a Democratic blockade swept away any hope of returning to the recent past, when nominees were largely confirmed with a bipartisan consensus.

Gorsuch is a Colorado native with an Ivy League résumé that includes degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied on a Marshall scholarship. For the past decade, he has served on the 10th circuit court of appeals. He was appointed to that seat in 2005 by George W Bush, and, by contrast, confirmed expeditiously – the Senate approved him on a voice vote with no objections.



At just 49, the staunch conservative could have a long tenure, though his confirmation restores the ideological tilt of the court, which is often narrowly divided five to four on major decisions.

Gorsuch will replace Scalia, the court’s conservative colossus whose death in February 2016 instantly altered the dynamics of the presidential race. From the bench, Scalia elevated the judicial theory of originalism, to which Gorsuch adheres.

Throughout the campaign, Trump promised to appoint a “pro-life” justice to the court. Gorsuch has never ruled directly on abortion and his testimony during the hearing hardly settled the matter. A passage from his book, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, indicates “all human beings are intrinsically valuable”, adding that “the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong” – an assertion many have taken as indicative of his position on abortion.

In his most high-profile decision, Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc v Sebelius, Gorsuch argued that the owners of the multibillion-dollar craft store did not need to comply with a provision of Barack Obama’s healthcare law requiring employers to offer birth control to female employees because it violated their religious beliefs. The decision was upheld, five to four, by the supreme court.

‘There’s enough blame to go around’

The confirmation of Neil Gorsuch on Friday was the denouement of an extraordinary 14-month drama that played out over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign and into the early months of Trump’s presidency.

It began with the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016. Senate Republicans gambled that a lifetime supreme court appointment would mobilize their voters in an unpredictable election year.

They refused to even grant a hearing to Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. During an election year, they argued, voters should decide who gets to fill the vacancy on the supreme court. Trump won the election, and Senate Republicans held on to their majority. And on Friday, Gorsuch was confirmed.

Ahead of the vote, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said keeping the seat open was the “most consequential decision I’ve ever been involved with”.

The blame game reached fever pitch in the run-up to Friday’s vote. Republicans blamed Democrats for firing the first salvo in the “judicial war” more than a decade ago, when they attempted to block nominees under George W Bush. McConnell argued that Democrats forced his hand when they mounted an “unprecedented partisan filibuster” against a qualified nominee.

Democrats, in turn, blamed Republicans for escalating the fight by refusing to grant Obama’s supreme court nominee a hearing, which some lawmakers have called the “filibuster of all filibusters”.

Trump chose Gorsuch from a list of justices vetted by conservative legal groups. Democrats vowed to filibuster what some openly called a “stolen seat”.

During Gorsuch’s hearing, Democrats sought to portray Gorsuch as a callous ally of corporate interests who was “outside the mainstream” and could not be trusted to stand up to the president who nominated him.

In one instance, Democratic senators hammered Gorsuch over a case in which he ruled that the company was justified in firing a truck driver who abandoned cargo to seek safety after losing feeling in his extremities while awaiting help in subzero temperatures. The majority opinion found the company was not justified in firing the driver, but Gorsuch wrote that the employee was in the wrong.

Republicans described Gorsuch as a brilliant legal scholar whose plain qualifications were being unfairly scrutinized by Democrats.

The more than 20 hours of questioning produced some fireworks. But ultimately, the hearing concluded without exposing any real stumbling blocks to his confirmation.

The hearing ended on a humorous note, with a question from Louisiana senator John Kennedy.

“You’ve never been to Russia, have you?” he asked. Gorsuch laughed. “I’ve never been to Russia.”

Ahead of the vote, the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer called for a delay in Gorsuch’s confirmation until there was clarity in the FBI’s investigation into potential ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia. He also urged Republicans to pull Gorsuch and find a nominee who would earn the support of 60 senators, enough to overcome a filibuster.

“They have had other choices,” the New York democrat said in a floor speech on Thursday. “They have chosen this one.”

In the days and hours before the vote, Republican and Democratic senators stood behind the lectern on the chamber floor to lament the entrenched partisanship that led to the historic rules change.

“Nobody has clean hands completely on this,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, conceded in a floor speech on Thursday. In 2005, Graham joined a bipartisan group of senators to preserve the filibuster, but on Thursday, he joined Republicans in killing it.

“There’s enough blame to go around on both sides,” he said.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, held the floor on Tuesday night to protest Gorsuch’s confirmation. “I’m here on the floor at 4:20 in the morning,” Merkley said, more than nine hours in, “because so much is at stake.”