Democrats largely voted against the president’s positions, but they weren’t quite as unified against Trump as Republicans were for him: In the House, the average Democratic member agreed with Trump 23 percent of the time; in the Senate, 31 percent of the time.
The voting behavior we saw in the 115th is pretty much what we’d expect. Because Republicans controlled both the executive and legislative branches, they were more likely to vote in unison on issues and avoid bringing votes to the floor that would be divisive or unsuccessful — although that certainly wasn’t always the case. Times when Republicans broke ranks and voted against the president — like a few did in July 2017 on legislation that would have repealed parts of the Affordable Care Act — drew attention, but votes like those weren’t the norm. The three GOP senators who sank the health insurance bill — Susan Collins of Maine, the late John McCain of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — all had Trump scores of 75 percent by the end of the 115th Congress. [...]
But Trump’s approval rating might have to take a nose dive before Republicans defect. While it’s unclear how voting patterns will shift in the new Congress, what is particularly striking is just how effective Trump has been in securing party loyalty in the first two years of his presidency. As you can see in the chart below, Senate Democrats didn’t coalesce as neatly around Obama during his first two years in office as Senate Republicans did around Trump.
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