President Donald Trump got his two former progressive Democratic Cabinet picks confirmed with little Republican dissent this week despite early predictions that they would have trouble getting through a GOP-controlled Senate.

When the Senate held the final votes on Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of health and human services, Vice President JD Vance wasn’t even in the country much less on hand at the Capitol to break a possible tie, as he did with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

That signaled how much confidence Senate Republican leaders had in the outcome despite the fact that neither nominee was able to get a single vote from senators from their former party. Republicans hold a solid, but not overwhelming, 53-47 majority in the upper chamber.

On the Republican side, only Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the longtime GOP floor leader, voted against them.

It is another sign of Trump remaking the Republican Party as its undisputed leader.

Many Republicans had expressed reservations about Gabbard and Kennedy on the precise issues that would be their portfolios if confirmed. But hawkish Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) quickly came around on the relatively dovish Gabbard. Strong social conservatives like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) were reassured Kennedy would not run the Department of Health and Human Services according to his previous liberal positions on abortion, though Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) took longer to come around.

A conservative group aligned with former Vice President Mike Pence, who served during Trump’s first term, tried to rally Republicans against Kennedy. Rallying Republicans against Kennedys was once a fairly easy thing to do, but this time Pence got barely any takers.

Gabbard was a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and a former vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, a position from which she resigned over the DNC’s treatment of Bernie Sanders, the socialist presidential candidate she supported in 2016. Gabbard sought the Democratic presidential nomination herself in 2020.

Kennedy is a longtime progressive activist and literal descendant of Camelot. His father was Robert F. Kennedy, a 1968 candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, New York senator, and attorney general in his brother’s administration. Former President John F. Kennedy was Kennedy Jr.’s uncle. The younger Kennedy originally planned to challenge then-President Joe Biden for renomination in the Democratic primaries in 2024 before launching a short-lived independent candidacy. Kennedy Jr. remained on some state ballots after dropping out and endorsing Trump, winning more than 756,000 votes and finishing a distant fourth place nationally.

Their crossover support proved helpful to Trump as he beat former Vice President Kamala Harris and won the popular vote for the first time in three consecutive campaigns. Some felt as if the parties traded former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for Kennedy and Gabbard. 

But plenty of Republican senators can get elected from safe red states without these crossover votes. Not all of them will be up for reelection next year, when Trump allies threatened to primary them if they blocked his less conventional nominees. Many will outlast Trump, who cannot seek reelection in 2028 under the 22nd Amendment.

Republican senators nevertheless seem inclined to give Trump the Cabinet he wants, especially with the president off to a better start than eight years ago. Two controversial Cabinet-level nominees remain: Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director who cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), who has been selected for labor secretary.

The union-friendly Chavez-DeRemer may actually encounter significant Republican opposition. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), for example, is not a fan. Or that may fizzle if she is not able to win the Democratic support that was originally anticipated as Senate Democrats find themselves in no mood to do Trump any favors.

Like Kennedy and Gabbard, Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination reflects changes in the Republican coalition under Trump. As the party has done better with working-class voters, Trump and Vance have sought to make inroads with unions. The first-term Trump Labor Department was mostly run by movement conservatives.

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So far, only Trump’s nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida for attorney general has proved to be a nonstarter. Gaetz has contentious relationships with many of his colleagues on Capitol Hill in addition to personal scandals, questions about his experience, and certain ideological disagreements. The Gaetz nomination was withdrawn last year, before Trump took office. Attorney General Pam Bondi was subsequently confirmed easily.

Elon Musk in his role heading up the Department of Government Efficiency has been one of Trump’s most controversial subordinates, but he did not require Senate confirmation.