Election Day is here, and the Senate majority remains uncertain for both parties. A narrow win could empower moderate senators to break with their leadership. If the chamber ends in a 50-50 tie, Vice President JD Vance must stay in Washington to break deadlocks, which limits his ability to campaign.
Whichever party wins, the Senate majority is likely to be narrow. Maybe neither party will have a majority!
Carl Hulse, our chief Washington correspondent, lays out the possibilities and the consequences. There are a number of them that could change how the Senate functions during the second half of President Trump's term in office.
A slim majority empowers senators in the middle.
Democrats have 47 seats, and they're likely to pick up more. With a majority, Democrats would make legislation impossible for the Republican leadership, but anything close to 50 could embolden Republicans who are willing to break with Trump and the party at large.
That's Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine (should Collins win her re-election race). A slim majority for the Republicans could also put pressure on a potential party-switcher like Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who has quarreled with Democratic leadership but who has said that he does not intend to switch.
A 50-50 tie is bad news for JD Vance.
A split down the middle means a Republican Senate, given the vice president's power to break deadlocks with a vote as the chamber's "presiding officer." But a tied Senate also leaves both parties in a situation where even a single defection could alter the outcome of a vote. And a single-member absence could make it impossible to move ahead with a bill. It would also mean that Vice President JD Vance, who is expected to be a leading Republican candidate for president in 2028, couldn't leave Washington to campaign while the Senate is in session. He'd have to be nearby to break tie votes.
In that scenario, Democrats would likely lobby Murkowski to flip her party affiliation, though she's unlikely to do so because she'd lose her powerful committee positions by changing sides. But it has happened before, Carl reminds. In 2001, Jim Jeffords, a Republican senator from Vermont, became an independent and started caucusing with the Democrats. That gave them a Senate majority.
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