Professor David Leblang, who heads the Batten School's Global Policy Center, spoke to Newsweek this week about the confirmation prospects of President Biden's first nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget. The nominee, Neera Tanden, is unlikely to be confirmed following the defection of conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). Dr. Leblang also named several potential back-up nominees for the pivotal office, and the issues that might affect each candidate's chances of confirmation. In the evenly divided Senate, Biden's nominees must all be acceptable to the moderate liberal majority within the Democratic Party, the left wing of the party, which controls a handful of votes, and at least one Republican centrist like Mitt Romney (R-UT).

"I don't think he's going to pick somebody who is a centrist" for OMB, Leblang told Newsweek. "What's interesting is that the current nominee, she was criticized by the left because they saw her as being too close to Wall Street. I think he's got to pick somebody who is going to make Wall Street breathe a sigh of relief, but also speak to the distributional concern that the left has."

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