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How many U.S. circuit and district court judges did Trump appoint versus other recent presidents?
Executive summary
Donald Trump has overseen an unprecedented number of Article III confirmations during and across his administrations: his first term produced roughly 234 Article III judges including 54 appellate and 174 district court judges, and as of November 21, 2025 the Senate had confirmed 253 Article III judges he nominated (60 circuit, 187 district, plus three Supreme Court justices and three Court of International Trade judges) — figures compiled by trackers such as Wikipedia and Ballotpedia [1] [2]. Comparisons to other presidents are reported in Ballotpedia and related trackers: Trump’s first-term appellate haul was larger than typical, and his second-term pace through mid‑2025 lagged prior second-term presidents [3] [4].
1. Trump’s raw totals and where they sit in the judiciary
During his first presidency, reporting shows Trump secured confirmation of about 234 Article III judges—three Supreme Court justices, roughly 54 court-of-appeals judges and about 174 district judges—which shifted the composition of multiple circuits [3]. Updated tallies through November 21, 2025 list 253 confirmed Article III judges nominated by Trump overall, broken out as three Supreme Court justices, 60 circuit judges, 187 district judges, and three Court of International Trade judges [1]. Ballotpedia’s ongoing tracking records similar totals and adds context on nominations and confirmations during his second term [2] [5].
2. How Trump compares to recent presidents on appellate versus district picks
Analysts stress not just totals but the mix: Trump’s first-term push focused unusually heavily on appellate judges, producing a record number of circuit appointments for a single term, which has the outsized effect of shaping law because circuit courts decide many final federal appeals [3] [6]. Ballotpedia and academic trackers note Trump’s appellate numbers outpaced many predecessors in a comparable period, whereas other presidents (for example, Barack Obama in his second term) had higher district confirmations early in their second terms [4] [5].
3. Pace and context of second-term confirmations
Multiple outlets report that during the early months of his second term, Trump’s confirmation pace slowed compared with typical second-term benchmarks: by August 1, 2025 the Senate had confirmed only five Article III judges for his second term, the fewest by that point in a president’s second term since Bill Clinton; the historical average at this point in second terms is about 13.3 confirmations [4]. Ballotpedia’s November reports show additional second-term activity but emphasize that the first term’s large haul remains the dominant reshaping force [2] [5].
4. Why appellate numbers matter more than raw totals
Commentators and advocacy groups warn that appellate appointments disproportionately influence federal law because the Supreme Court accepts only a small fraction of cases, leaving circuit courts as de facto final arbiters in many areas [6]. Demand Justice and other monitors have flagged that shifts in appellate composition — where Trump added dozens of conservative circuit judges — can reshape areas including administrative law, voting rights and regulatory disputes for decades [6].
5. Competing perspectives and political framing
Supporters of Trump’s nominations frame the appointments as restoring “law and order” or correcting perceived liberal activism in the courts; Reuters coverage quotes administration statements about nominees’ commitments to constitutional restraint [7] [8]. Critics — including some former judges and progressive groups — characterize the appointments as a deliberate conservative remaking of the judiciary with lasting political consequences [9] [6]. Both views are reflected in the record counts and in the emphasis on circuit-level strategy by advocacy trackers [3] [6].
6. Limitations and gaps in available reporting
Available sources provide counts, nomination/confirmation timelines, and analysis on distribution between district and appellate courts, but do not offer a single, official government table comparing every recent president side‑by‑side in one place within this dataset; Ballotpedia and Wikipedia synthesize Senate confirmations and vacancy trackers to produce comparisons [1] [10] [5]. If you want a precise head-to-head year-by-year comparison (e.g., exact appellate/district splits at the end of each president’s term), that level of tabulation is not contained in one cited source here and would require combining the trackers’ underlying datasets [10] [5].
If you’d like, I can extract side‑by‑side counts for Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton using Ballotpedia and the Senate/Wikipedia tallies and present them in a concise table built solely from these sources (noting any gaps).