While President Donald Trump has had mixed success before the Supreme Court, he’s getting crushed in the lower courts.
The Trumpn administration has lost a shocking 96% of rulings in federal district courts so far this month, according to a recent analysis by Adam Bonica, a professor of political science at Stanford.
Bonica’s data indicates that judges across the ideological spectrum are ruling against Trump at similar rates. He’s lost in 72% of rulings issued by Republican-appointed judges and 80% of rulings by Democratic-appointed judges.
Trump’s cross-ideological loss rate is likely due to several factors.
A flood of officials have left, or been purged from, the Department of Justice, which has likely added to the workloads for those who remained or new hires. This increases the likelihood of mistakes or poor planning, potentially leading to unconvincing arguments before judges.
Trump’s going after the legal profession itself as well. In arresting judges, attacking the courts, targeting lawyers and legal organizations, Trump set the legal profession as a whole on the defensive. Judges may now be acutely sensitive to challenges to their authority and far less willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt in certain cases.
But most important, it’s the result of what Trump is attempting. He’s trying to execute the largest expansion of executive power in modern U.S. history, seeking to not only solidify control over the executive branch but purloin power from the other branches as well. He’s also undermining the fundamental freedoms and foundational legal principles, like due process and habeas corpus.
Naturally, it would be immensely difficult for those who have sworn an oath to support the Constitution to rule in favor of actions — such as changing the prevailing interpretation of the 14th Amendment by decree — that blatantly undermine it.
In short, much of what Trump is trying to do appears to be illegal, so it’s no surprise that that’s what the courts are finding.
Still, these court orders against Trump may be short lived. As Bonica noted, these cases will move on to the appellate courts, where conservative circuit judges are more ideologically aligned with the president.
Eventually, they may also reach the Supreme Court, which, as indicated by its preliminary ruling on Wilcox’s and Harris’ dismissals, is still largely deferential to executive power — and to Trump.