Senate confirms Trump pick Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court

The Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch to become the newest associate justice on the Supreme Court today, elevating Donald Trump's nominee following a corrosive partisan confrontation that could have lasting impacts for the Senate and the court.
Vice President Mike Pence was presiding as the Senate voted 54-45 in favor of Gorsuch, a 49-year-old veteran of the 10th US Circuit of Appeals in Denver whose rulings make him an intellectual heir to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat he will fill.
Gorsuch won support from 51 of the chambers' Republicans as well as three moderate Democrats up for re-election in states Trump won last fall: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.

GOP Sen Johnny Isakson of Georgia did not vote.
The outcome was a major win for Trump, his biggest congressional victory to date, as well as for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, who kept Scalia's seat open after the justice's death in February 2016. McConnell refused to hold hearings for President Barack Obama's nominee. After he is sworn in, Gorsuch will restore the court's conservative voting majority that existed before Scalia's death.
Republicans exulted in the victory.
"He's an exceptional choice," McConnell said.