Political appointments made under the Trump administration have reached unprecedented levels, while at the same time those appointees are leaving in record numbers, and often after short tenures.

Nearly 1,000 political appointees who don’t require Senate confirmation left their posts within the first 18 months of the administration, new research from the Partnership for Public Service shows. That represents about 25% of all non-Senate-confirmed appointees during President Donald Trump’s second term so far.

Close to half of political appointees who have already separated from government served less than one year, and about a quarter served for under six months, creating high levels of turnover governmentwide.

“We’re seeing that officials aren’t staying in their positions long enough to really learn the institutions, build the relationships they need to be able to perform their duties effectively,” Chris Piper, author of the Partnership’s Sept. 9 report, said in an interview with Federal News Network.

Presidents make roughly 4,000 political appointments during a term, the vast majority of which do not require Senate confirmation. Those appointments include non-career Senior Executive Service members, Schedule C appointees, senior advisors and other officials across government.

“Some turnover is normal. Political appointees have always cycled through government faster than the career workforce, and short tenures come with the territory,” the nonprofit’s report states. “But the second Trump administration has pushed a familiar pattern to a new high, losing more of these appointees, and losing them faster, than any recent president.”

The Partnership’s analysis found that a total of 934 non-Senate-confirmed appointees have so far left government, more than double the departures at the same point during the Biden and Obama administrations and 58% more than during Trump’s first term.

The findings are a “conservative” estimate, the Partnership said, since there is no public information available on appointees who transition to another agency position — the data is only visible once they leave government altogether.

“There is a large lack of transparency in knowing who is exercising power, where and in what position,” Piper said. “We need more information about these thousands of political appointees that are executing power on behalf of the president and the American people.”

The high political appointee turnover is affecting some agencies more than others. The departments of Commerce, Transportation, Homeland Security, Labor, Justice and Veterans Affairs have seen the most movement, each having lost more than a quarter of their non-Senate-confirmed appointees under the Trump administration.

While Commerce has had the highest turnover rate, DHS has seen the largest number of total separations, with 97 political appointees having left their positions so far.

“Having stable leadership is important to achieve all the objectives that an administration has set out,” Piper said. “It will be objectively more difficult to accomplish with the leadership team having such a high rate of turnover.”

At the same time, career SES staffing is at a historic low, having shrunk considerably during the Trump administration. Research earlier this year found that the career SES is down nearly 30% — the lowest level in at least 25 years — while political appointments have surged and Senate-confirmed positions are also seeing record turnover rates.

Lower levels of career leadership mean less expertise, less stability and less continuity across agencies, according to Piper.

“When you have higher rates of new appointees coming in and turning over more quickly, it creates more instability in an agency that now can’t absorb it as effectively because the career leadership isn’t as robust,” he said.

Though the Trump administration’s turnover rates are far higher, a general churn of political appointees is still a persistent trend across recent presidential administrations.

“It makes it difficult for agencies to focus on long-term challenges and see objectives through when they have this high level of management turnover,” Piper said. “But the Trump administration still stands out — it’s taking a longstanding management problem of relying so heavily on political appointees and exacerbating it.”

Notably, political appointee turnover also tends to increase during the later years of presidential administrations, the Partnership’s research shows.

“If this administration follows the trends of prior presidencies, we will see even higher levels of turnover than what we’re seeing now, which is already unusually and remarkably high,” Piper said.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11

Copyright © 2026 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.