Donald Trump's Republican Party will come to power with "triple" control of government after winning the House of Representatives, Senate and the presidency in the 2024 US election.
It's not unusual for a U.S. president to control both houses of Congress. Trump won three straight in his first term, as did Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
But Trump has an unusual advantage over his predecessors: Six of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court were appointed by Republican presidents.
Since World War II, only two other presidents have taken office with full control of both chambers of Congress and a two-thirds or more "supermajority" of the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court justices have no formal allegiances to political parties or the president, but most conservative-leaning justices will serve Trump.
Here is a historical comparison of these government majorities. Use the "Show distribution between parties" checkbox to show the exact proportion of control.
Presidency
House majority party
Senate majority
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"On the face of it, the president-elect will have substantial freedom of action, even though he has a slim majority in the House," said William Galston, chair of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
But, he added: "Many presidents in the past have mistakenly believed that the Supreme Court was on their side."
In the early 20th century, Scotus' appointments tended to be less partisan. For example, the justices appointed by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower would go on to usher in the court's liberal era. "I made two mistakes, and both of them are before the Supreme Court," he allegedly said after taking office.
Also in 1952, when all nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democratic presidents, Democrat Harry Truman was blindsided by a ruling that his attempt to commandeer the U.S. steel industry was unconstitutional.
Several rulings on prisoner rights during Republican George W. Bush's war on terror also placed limits on presidential power, such as Rasul v. Bush and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.
In recent years, however, experts have warned of growing partisanship on the court. Data from a Supreme Court database show a 50-point gap in how often Republican and Democratic appointees vote for liberal results in 2023. In 2004, the figure was 25 percentage points, and in 1984 it was 13 percentage points.
“This Supreme Court is further to the right than ever before,” Galston said.
Recent landmark rulings on abortion rights, expanded Second Amendment rights and presidential immunity have all been ideologically divided: six conservative justices voted one way; three liberal justices voted against each other.
The Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity also highlights its attitude toward the scope of the president's executive power.
"We already know that most people currently hold a very broad view of executive power. With this ruling, one wonders what obstacles the Supreme Court can put in place against claims of executive power," said Ed Smith, a professor at Marquette University School of Law in Wisconsin Fallon said.
Trump's use of these extraordinary executive liberties will face a public trial for the first time in the 2026 midterm elections.
Recent history shows that presidents typically lose at least some control of their government in midterm elections. Of the past five presidents, all but George W. Bush have lost one or both branches of Congress to the opposition in the first midterm election.
Whether Trump will reverse that trend remains to be seen, but his ambitious and controversial agenda, along with his already slim majority in the House, will be factors come the election.
On the Supreme Court, if any of the current justices retire in the next few years, Trump will appoint their successors.
If he can replace the two oldest Republican appointees: Samuel Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 74, he will be able to retain his conservative supermajority.
Sonia Sotomayor, 70, is the oldest in the liberal camp. Her retirement would allow Trump to further push the supermajority to seven-nine-points.