'Everyone's got leverage': Dreading a 50-50 Senate split [View all]
It’s an outcome that practically no one wants, but it’s starting to look like a real possibility: a 50-50 Senate.
An evenly split Senate would make life grueling for whoever is president next year. Any one senator could determine the fate of critical nominations or key pieces of the party’s legislative agenda. And in an era of already deep polarization, it could lead to even worse gridlock, as inconceivable as that sounds.
“A 50-50 Senate makes it really difficult for the party of the president to do everything that they may want to do because party discipline, conference discipline, is very challenging,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).
But if Democrats pick up a net three seats, that’s what happens. Should Joe Biden win the presidency, they’ll hold the majority; if President Donald Trump is reelected, Democrats need four seats to do so. That’s because under an evenly divided chamber, the party that holds the White House runs the Senate, with the vice president casting the deciding 51st vote to break any tie.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/17/50-50-senate-control-416424
I would be overjoyed with a 50-50 Senate and a Biden win. We've been swimming upstream in the Senate all year, and a Democratic takeover there has seemed unlikely. But now it looks like we have a chance.
2020 Senate Election Forecasts
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