Votes & Positions Over Time

Where has he stood, recorded, over time? Thirty-six years in the Senate and 12,771 votes cast — the measure this dive is named for, on a record that has it. Across eighteen Congresses he moves seven and a half times as far as the median senator of his own party does, and the sign flips: he begins well to their left and ends well to their right. Two years of collapsed attendance sit inside that, and they are not the same kind of absence.

The six universal dives are asked of every subject at this tier. This is not one of them. It exists because of one thing this subject has been — office-holder — and a subject who has not been that never gets this page. That is why this record has 7 overlay dives to write rather than a number every record shares. All six base dives were written first, and that ordering is a rule rather than a habit: an overlay dive published on its own is a page about the part of someone chosen by whoever built it.

The six base dives and the other 6 overlay dives are listed on the full record.

Twelve thousand seven hundred and seventy-one votes

Across eighteen Congresses and thirty-six years he was present for 14,552 roll calls and cast a vote in 12,771 of them — 8,187 yea and 4,584 nay. Participation across the career is 87.8%, and above 90% in twelve of the eighteen.

18 Congresses, 1973 to January 2009. He resigned on 15 January 2009, twelve days into the 111th Congress, and appears in five roll calls. Voteview still estimates a score of -0.741 for that Congress. It rests on five votes and is not used, charted or averaged anywhere on this page.

The same dive on the other record at this tier opens on a null — no seat was ever held and no legislative vote ever cast, so it substitutes the veto. This is what the question looks like when the record exists. See /donald-trump/votes-and-positions.