The roll call turned a personnel decision into a test of how senators read an election mandate. The official record shows a narrow confirmation and a sharply divided chamber.
The Senate is deciding whether to confirm Todd Blanche was the political premise, and the choice is framed as confirming Blanche or ignoring the voters. The U.S. Senate’s official record shows the outcome: on March 5, 2025, senators voted 52-46 on Vote Number 105 to confirm Todd Blanche, of Florida, as deputy attorney general under nomination PN12-5.
The fight around “Confirm Todd Blanche” matters because it was never only about one nominee. Supporters treated confirmation as the politically correct choice after an election; opponents treated the vote as a test of whether senators would exercise independent judgment on a powerful Justice Department post.
The vote settled the nomination
The official Senate roll call lists the question as confirmation of “Todd Blanche, of Florida, to be Deputy Attorney General.” The required threshold was a simple majority, listed by the Senate as “1/2,” and the nomination was confirmed.
The final count was close enough to show a divided chamber but not close enough to leave the result in doubt: 52 senators voted yea, 46 voted nay and two did not vote. The two senators listed as not voting were Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, and Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming.
That makes the official record the anchor for the current argument. Whatever political language surrounded the nomination, the procedural fact is clear: Blanche was confirmed by the Senate on March 5, 2025.
A sharply partisan roll call
The vote pattern was striking. According to the Senate roll call, the 52 yes votes came from Republican senators. The 46 no votes came from Democratic senators and the chamber’s two independents who caucus with Democrats, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.
That divide explains why the nomination became easy to frame as a political loyalty test. For supporters, a president who won the election should be able to staff the executive branch with people who share his governing direction, especially in senior Justice Department roles.
For opponents, the Senate’s advice-and-consent power is not a rubber stamp. Their position is that voters elect a president, but senators still have a constitutional role to review nominees, weigh qualifications and decide whether a particular person should hold a powerful federal office.
The roll call does not explain each senator’s reasoning. It does show that Blanche’s confirmation moved through a chamber where party alignment largely predicted the outcome.
Why the voters argument stuck
The phrase “ignore the voters” is a potent political shortcut. It suggests that opposing a nominee is not just disagreement over a resume or office, but resistance to the electoral verdict that put an administration in power.
That argument has real force in confirmation fights. Presidents cannot govern without confirmed officials, and the deputy attorney general is not a ceremonial job. The person in that role helps steer the Justice Department, one of the most consequential agencies in the federal government.
Still, the voters argument has limits. Voters do not cast separate ballots for deputy attorney general. The Senate exists partly to create friction between presidential preference and final appointment, especially when a post carries legal, enforcement or national significance.
That is why this confirmation fight became bigger than Blanche. It touched the recurring question in Washington: when does deference to an elected president become surrender of Senate responsibility?
What supporters can point to
Supporters of Blanche’s confirmation can point first to the result itself. A majority of senators voted to confirm him, and the Senate’s official record says the nomination was confirmed. In the confirmation system, that is the decisive fact.
They can also argue that elections are supposed to have consequences. A president’s senior Justice Department leadership is central to carrying out the administration’s legal priorities, and blocking nominees can slow or reshape that agenda.
That is the heart of the pro-confirmation view: if voters chose a governing program, then senators aligned with that program have a strong reason to approve qualified nominees who can help execute it.
In that reading, the 52-46 vote was not merely partisan. It was a governing majority using the confirmation process to install the team it believes voters authorized.
What opponents can argue
Opponents can answer that a majority vote does not end the debate over Senate judgment. The Constitution gives senators a separate role, and that role matters most when the office is powerful.
The deputy attorney general is the Justice Department’s second-ranking official. Senators who voted no could argue that the post demands a high level of confidence across the chamber, not just support from the president’s party.
They can also reject the idea that a no vote equals ignoring voters. Senators have voters too. A senator who opposes a nominee may be acting on the preferences of their own state, their view of the nominee’s record or their understanding of institutional checks and balances.
That is the counterweight to the mandate argument. Presidential elections matter, but so do Senate elections, Senate oversight and the expectation that nominees face meaningful scrutiny.
The takeaway from Vote 105
Vote Number 105 did two things at once. It confirmed Todd Blanche, of Florida, as deputy attorney general under nomination PN12-5, and it exposed how quickly confirmation fights become arguments about democracy itself.
The cleanest reading is also the least theatrical: the Senate made its decision. Blanche received 52 votes, more than enough under the listed majority requirement, and the nomination was confirmed.
The political reading is messier. To supporters, the vote respected voters by allowing the administration to staff a top Justice Department role. To opponents, the nearly unified resistance showed that advice and consent remains a live check, not a formality.
What remains unclear from the roll call alone is how much of the vote was about Blanche personally and how much was about the larger fight over executive power. The numbers answer the confirmation question. They do not end the argument over what senators owe a president, their constituents and the institution they serve.
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