The Senate voted on Tuesday morning to confirm Elbridge Colby as undersecretary of defense for policy, capping off a nomination process that highlighted fissures in the Republican Party on U.S. policy toward Iran and the Middle East. 

Ultimately, every Republican other than Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fell in line behind Colby while three Democrats, Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), broke with their party to support Colby. He was confirmed by a 54-45 vote. 

All three Democrats who supported Colby serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, with Reed being the top Democrat, where they voted last week on a secret ballot during a classified session to advance Colby’s nomination. They were also the sole Democrats to support the procedural motion allowing the Senate to move to a final vote on Monday evening.

That Colby secured any Democratic support was unexpected due to his skepticism of U.S. support for Ukraine and involvement in foreign conflicts. Colby faced tough questioning from Democrats on the committee during his confirmation hearing last month over his isolationist foreign policy views, including from the three who ultimately voted for his confirmation.

Asked by Jewish Insider about her yes vote while leaving the Senate floor, Slotkin pointed to the fact that Colby “used to work for me.” 

“I think he’s qualified for the job,” Kelly told JI when asked the same question.

“I’ve been following his career. He’s testified several times before the committee. He’s very thoughtful,” Reed said. “I don’t agree with all of his policy positions, but I think he’s somebody that you could have a very constructive dialogue with.”

He said he thought Colby had “corrected” some of his more controversial remarks about Ukraine at his hearing, which he said had “rightfully upset many of my colleagues.”

McConnell was the sole dissenter on the GOP side. He had voted to advance Colby’s nomination on Monday evening, though he had done the same on previous nominees he ultimately opposed. 

McConnell, the former longtime Senate Republican leader, said in a statement that Colby’s “long public record suggests a willingness to discount the complexity of the challenges facing America, the critical value of our allies and partners, and the urgent need to invest in hard power to preserve American primacy. The prioritization that Mr. Colby argues is fresh, new, and urgently needed is, in fact, a return to an Obama-era conception of a la carte geostrategy.”

“Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move. It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit,” McConnell continued. 

McConnell added that, “Colby’s confirmation leaves open the door for the less-polished standard-bearers of restraint and retrenchment at the Pentagon to do irreparable damage to the system of alliances and partnerships which serve as force multipliers to U.S. leadership. It encourages isolationist perversions of peace through strength to continue apace at the highest levels of Administration policymaking.”

Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who were considered the other potential dissenters on Colby’s nomination, voted to confirm him.

In addition to Democrats, a number of Senate Republicans privately expressed reservations about Colby in recent months, primarily over his past comments that the U.S. could contain a nuclear Iran. 

Colby’s statements during his confirmation hearing walking back some of those positions, including that the U.S. could contain a nuclear armed Iran and that it should not attack Iran to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, helped mollify some of those concerns. His comments at the hearing and in private conversations with skeptical GOP senators distancing himself from other controversial Pentagon hires also helped him lock down support from nearly all of them.

William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, also wrote to senators in February raising questions about Colby’s past views and other issues prior to his confirmation hearing.

Trump allies including Vice President JD Vance, Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk rallied to Colby’s defense ahead of his hearing, as did the Republican Jewish Coalition. Colby is also seen as an ally of Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson. 

Several Democrats who were not present for Monday’s cloture vote, including Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), voted against Colby on Tuesday.

Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), a freshman Armed Services member, was also absent from Monday’s procedural vote, though he voted to confirm Colby on Tuesday. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Curtis (R-UT) were similarly absent Monday but voted to confirm Colby on Tuesday.