JD Vance is on record pace for tie-breaking votes. That shows how fraught Trump’s agenda is

It’s difficult to overstate how unpopular President Donald Trump’s agenda is right now. On most key items and issues, it’s even more unpopular than the already unpopular president.

It’s difficult to overstate how unpopular President Donald Trump’s agenda is right now. On most key items and issues, it’s even more unpopular than the already unpopular president. For example: A new CNN poll released Wednesday showed Americans opposed Trump’s signature new domestic policy law by a 22-point margin. That makes it perhaps the most disliked major new law in decades. Of course, Congress still passed it. To the political credit of Trump and those around him, they are getting their agenda across the line, in large part because Republicans are afraid of his wrath. But the way they are doing it only reinforces how fraught Trump’s proposals are. Despite Republicans expanding their Senate majority to a more comfortable 53-47 edge in the 2024 election, they’ve relied on tie-breaking votes from Vice President JD Vance in a historic way. In fact, Vance is on pace to nearly double the current record for tie-breaking votes in a four-year period. And he’s been called on to break ties on major votes much more often than his predecessors – even as his nearest competitors generally had smaller majorities.