From taxes to the environment to public broadcasting like PBS and NPR, the Senate has recently passed record levels of legislation and confirmed record numbers of nominations with senators representing less than half the people.
Using historical data, GovTrack found 56 examples of Senate votes on legislation that passed with senators representing a “population minority.” 26 of those 56 examples, nearly half, have occurred since President Donald Trump’s current term began.
How did GovTrack calculate this?
GovTrack includes a feature on all its Senate vote listings, displaying both the “official” roll call – how many senators voted yes or no – alongside the percentage of the contemporaneous population those senators represent. (When each of a state’s two senators vote differently, half of the state’s population is apportioned to each senator.)
For example, take the very first bill the Senate voted on in 2025: the Laken Riley Act. A top priority for Trump, the bill mandated detention of undocumented immigrants arrested for theft or burglary.
The Republican-led Senate passed it with 65% support. GovTrack’s data shows those senators represented 60% of the U.S. population – still a majority, but a bit less so.
Other Senate votes, though, win a majority of the senators while only representing a minority of the population.
In this article, we look at these votes.
What were they?
Here are two of those most notable “population minority” Senate votes on bills enacted in the current Congress:
- One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans’ main legislation for tax cuts, funding immigration enforcement, and deregulation. President Trump signed it into law July 4, on Independence Day. It passed with senators representing 44% of the U.S. population.
- Rescissions Act, ending federal taxpayer money for CPB (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting), a major funder of PBS television and public radio stations. It passed with senators representing 46% of the U.S. population. (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting voted to dissolve itself in January 2026. PBS and NPR continue to exist, funded through a combination of individuals and philanthropy.)
| Bill | Date | Senate vote | Population % |
|---|---|---|---|
| One Big Beautiful Bill Act | July 1, 2025 | 50%* | 44% |
| Rescissions Act | July 17, 2025 | 52% | 46% |
* Vice President J.D. Vance broke the Senate tie in favor.
Most of the Senate’s other recent “population minority” votes overturned Biden-era rules and regulations, particularly regarding the environment and energy.
By GovTrack’s count, six such Senate votes were about the Environmental Protection Agency, another six were about the Bureau of Land Management, and four were for the Department of Energy.
Also for nominations
Several of the second Trump administration’s most prominent members were confirmed by Senate “population minority” votes – including RFK Jr. (Secretary of Health and Human Services), Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard.
| Nominee | Position | Senate vote | Population % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. | Secretary of Health and Human Services | 52% | 46% |
| Pete Hegseth | Secretary of Defense | 50%* | 46% |
| Pam Bondi | (Former) Attorney General | 54% | 49% |
| Kash Patel | FBI Director | 51% | 46% |
| Tulsi Gabbard | Director of National Intelligence | 52% | 46% |
* Vice President J.D. Vance broke the Senate tie in favor.
The Supreme Court
The oldest example GovTrack found of a “population minority” Senate vote is actually famous: Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court nomination by President George H. W. Bush. The Senate approved Thomas with 52% support, but 49% of the population.
He still serves on the Court today.
GovTrack found three other “population minority” Senate confirmations for Supreme Court justices, totalling four: Thomas plus Trump’s three first-term nominees. All four still serve on the Court.
| Supreme Court nominee | Year | Senate vote | Population % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clarence Thomas | 1991 | 52% | 49% |
| Neil Gorsuch | 2017 | 55% | 46% |
| Brett Kavanaugh | 2018 | 51% | 44% |
| Amy Coney Barrett | 2020 | 52% | 48% |
Unprecedented levels for legislation
The earliest example GovTrack could find for legislation was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, a banking deregulation law. The Republican-led Senate passed it with 55% support, representing 48% of the population.
Yet such examples proved rare. According to GovTrack’s data, starting from that 1999 vote through 2016, such Senate “population minority” votes on legislation only occurred 12 times. That’s not even once per year.
That changed in Trump’s first term, though, when the Republican-led Senate of his first two years passed 17 “population minority” votes.
But it’s really zoomed to another level now. The current Republican-led Senate has already passed an unprecedented 26 “population minority” votes on legislation.
Unprecedented levels for nominations
The numbers similarly reveal how unprecedented this current Senate is for nominations.
After Thomas in 1991, a Senate “population minority” nominee confirmation vote – whether for the Supreme Court or otherwise – only occurred once in the next decade. In 1994, the Senate voted to retire Navy Adm. Frank Kelso while retaining his four-star rank, after sexual harassment allegations, with 56% support but 45% of the population.
According to GovTrack’s historical analysis of votes over the last century, the Senate has confirmed 293 nominees with “population minority” votes. 133 of those 293, almost half, have occurred since Trump took office again in 2025.
Although bills must also pass the House, which has proportional representation, nominations are only voted on in the Senate.
How is this possible?
Wait, why is this even able to occur at all?
Currently, Republicans hold a Senate majority: 53 to 47. However, based on the Census Bureau’s current estimates, it’s actually the other way around by population: Democratic senators represent a 53% majority of the states’ population, versus Republicans with 47%.
How is this possible? Because while the U.S. House is apportioned based on population, with larger states receiving more representatives, the U.S. Senate guarantees each state two senators regardless of size.
This was baked into the American system from the beginning, creating what political scientists call a “counter-majoritarian” institution.
In 2025, according to Census Bureau estimates, the most populous state (California) had about 67x the population as the least populous: Wyoming. Today, a Senate voting majority could be cobbled together from senators representing just 17% of the population.
But that’s actually been the same for a while. Going back to 1900, a Senate voting majority could be cobbled together with senators representing 16% to 20% of the population.
Instead, small states may be more politically aligned than they used to be and are voting together more often as a bloc.
The Senate’s vote threshold
Senators have recently taken advantage of old rules, and also changed some rules, to use lower vote thresholds. This means votes are more often succeeding with less support.
Both parties contributed to this.
In 2013, under President Obama, Senate Democrats changed the threshold for most nominations from three-fifths to a simple majority. They left it at three-fifths for the Supreme Court, though.
Then in 2017 during Trump’s first term, Senate Republicans changed the threshold for the Supreme Court, too, to confirm Justice Gorsuch by a simple majority. (This rule applied to all subsequent justices, too.)
As for legislation, many of the recent “population minority” Senate votes used the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which lowered the usual Senate vote threshold from three-fifths to a simple majority for certain deregulation bills. The One Big Beautiful Act and the Rescissions Act were both voted on under other rules, which lower the vote threshold for certain spending-related bills.
So the three-fifths threshold is now gone for nominations and some types of legislation.
It might not stop there. Trump has called for the Senate to end the three-fifths threshold for all legislation, in order to enact certain Republican policies – particularly regarding election rules. If that happens, “population minority” Senate votes could become even more frequent.
Why does this usually benefit Republicans?
This discrepancy usually benefits the GOP, since they tend to represent smaller states.
Take those two states we just mentioned, for example. Tens of millions of mostly-progressive Californians are represented by the same number of senators as the less than one million mostly-MAGA Wyomingites.
So although their population sizes are apples and oranges, in the Senate, the Golden State’s two Democrats and the Cowboy State’s two Republicans essentially “tie.”
The consequences of this discrepancy become even more obvious in aggregate.
The top half of states by population, from California through Louisiana, actually have a Democratic Senate majority: 28 to 22. However, the bottom half of states by population, from Kentucky through Wyoming, are majority Republican: 31 to 19.
(In particular, note that the bottom half of states lean “more” Republican than how much the top half of states lean Democratic.)
This small-state Republican benefit also holds true at the presidential level. Indeed, two presidents in living memory won election despite losing the national popular vote, both Republicans: George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016.
The Congressional Review Act, which makes it easier for Congress to deregulate – and the rules for rescissions bills, which makes it easier to cut funding – also are more aligned with Republican goals than Democratic goals.
Is this good or bad?
To be clear: all this doesn’t necessarily mean these counter-majoritarian policy outcomes are “better” or “worse.” That depends on your political ideology, and that’s a completely separate discussion.
But for better or for worse, it’s clear that the Senate is diverging from popular opinion far more than ever before, at least in recent memory. Even if one believes the Senate is, in fact, “right” while popular opinion is “wrong.”
Jesse Rifkin's writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
Record Number of Bills and Nominations Passed With Senators Representing a Population Minority was originally published by GovTrack and is republished with permission.
