WASHINGTON, July 22 -- Jay Clayton is now one Senate floor vote away from running America's intelligence community. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence advanced his nomination as Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday on a party-line vote, with every Republican on the panel voting to confirm and every Democrat opposing, the most predictable outcome of a confirmation process that has produced little genuine surprise since it began.

The narrow committee margin reflects the panel's membership rather than any bipartisan reconsideration of Clayton's qualifications or the concerns Democrats raised about him during his confirmation hearing. Senate Intelligence committees are structured to track the chamber's partisan breakdown, an...