While contemporary scholars generally view the Senate’s nominee approval role as impacting bureaucratic capacities and the president’s ability to realize campaign pledges, empiricists and theorists focus on different elements of bargaining. Since empiricists typically study confirmation delays, and theorists normally analyze equilibrium nomination preferences, theory and data rarely inform one another.

We remedy this by specifying an executive appointment model jointly incorporating delays and appointee ideologies. Besides predicting appointees’ equilibrium ideologies, and contrary to past claims about the relationship between ideology and duration, this theory details how ideological differences between the president and his opposition do not straightforwardly induce longer delays; rather, effects are conditioned by factors such as the office’s policy importance and divided government. Additionally, different pathways for parties to impact appointee ideology and duration are flexibly incorporated. Empirically, theoretical hypotheses receive support and evidence of parties impacting Senate trade-offs between delay and policy outcomes and successfully pressuring key members over high-stakes appointments are uncovered.