By Savannah Behrmann, CQ-Roll Call
WASHINGTON — Democrats believe they can flip the Senate and control 51 votes or more, and their confidence has only grown in the final week before the midterms. But senators in both parties are privately bracing for another possible scenario: a 50-50 split that would give the upper hand to Republicans while causing headaches for everyone.
Thanks to the tie-breaking vote of Vice President JD Vance, the GOP would still have the final word on the floor. That leaves everything else to figure out, including how power is balanced on committees.
In the past, the two parties have hammered out agreements to address those tricky questions. None of those, however, were under a president like Donald Trump.
As with most things in Washington these days, Trump is the “wild card here,” said Steven S. Smith, a professor at Arizona State University who has written extensively about the Senate.
He “seems to be able to pull the strings of at least some Senate Republicans in a way that President George W. Bush could not, and he might insist on some other arrangement that prevents the Senate from agreeing to a formal ceasefire and power-sharing arrangement as they did in 2001,” Smith said.
At the helm for Democrats back then was Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who called the period “history making.” Control of the Senate may have flipped three times within seven months, but the agreement he created with GOP leader Trent Lott left an enduring mark, inspiring a similar blueprint forged by Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer and GOP leader Mitch McConnell in 2021.
It provided both sides with equal committee membership and budget and staff resources, while also creating a special discharge procedure to advance legislation or nominees from a deadlocked committee.
Asked this week about any future power-sharing agreement, a Senate Republican aide didn’t guarantee it would be identical to the one in 2021, citing shifting precedents.
And Daschle predicted Trump would pressure Republicans not to give any ground in negotiations. “If there’s a 50-50 Senate, you’ll see him try just about every trick in the book to ensure that somehow his party can be successful.”
Smith agreed. “Conditions have changed,” he said. “And of course the Republicans are going to be plenty peeved if a tie 50-50 Senate is the outcome, because likely they will have just lost the House and will be arguing to themselves anyway that retaining firm control of the Senate is absolutely essential.”
The Fetterman question
Whatever happens, it may be hard to beat the rollercoaster that was 2001 — though it offers some valuable lessons on how to court independents, Daschle said.
The volatile period started with Democratic Vice President Al Gore having the tie-breaking vote, shifted in favor of Republicans when Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were inaugurated on Jan. 20, and veered back months later when Republican Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the GOP to become an independent to caucus with Democrats, returning Daschle to the helm of the Senate.
Daschle described “extensively” working Jeffords to get him to flip. “Harry Reid started the conversation, and Chris Dodd weighed in. It took several weeks, but we convinced him that it was in his interests and Vermont’s interests, and ultimately it worked.”
He also described earlier conversations with Sen. John McCain, saying he believes the Arizona Republican was “very close to making the change” though it never came to fruition.
Now senators of both parties are eyeing someone who could wield outsize power in a 50-50 or 51-49 scenario: Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman.
“He’s going to be a thorn in the side of the Democrats, whatever he does. There’s no doubt about that,” Smith said. “He’s a wild card. It’s almost always the case that when the Senate (could be) 50-50, that each party begins to look for someone in the other party for assistance.”
Speculation about his future has become frequent on Capitol Hill — and a sore topic of conversation for Fetterman. He told reporters in September: “I’m not going to be a Republican!… If I turn a Republican, then I’ll be a liar.”
Christian Grose, professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California, said there is “almost certainly some backroom jockeying” happening to get Fetterman to become an independent and caucus with Republicans, or to flip outright.
Fetterman, whose office did not reply to several requests for comment, spoke favorably of Trump and Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Dave McCormick at the GOP’s midterm convention. Earlier this summer, he said he’d leave the Democratic Party if it becomes “the anti-Israel party” and stops providing aid for that country.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said at the time he’d “had conversations with him in the past, as have many of my colleagues, about the challenges he faces in his caucus,” adding “if he ever comes to the conclusion that he’s ready to move, we would certainly welcome him.”
Daschle bet the buck wouldn’t stop at Fetterman, saying there’d “be equal possibilities for a number of Republicans who are independent-minded, who may be tired of this administration or tired of the way the Senate is operating.”
Smith and Grose both pointed to Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who previously ruled out becoming a Democrat but last year said on the GD Politics podcast “there may be that possibility” of her one day becoming an independent.
During the Biden administration, Vice President Kamala Harris cast 33 tie-breaking votes in her role as president of the Senate, the most in history, as Democrats navigated their narrow control. And Schumer had to wrangle two wild cards of his own, Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who would both eventually leave the Democratic Party to become independents.
In a July op-ed in the Washington Post, Fetterman wrote that “history has vindicated” Sinema and Manchin, “two people who were vilified by the Democratic Party for their support of the filibuster and whose courageous efforts damaged their political careers.”
Two senators in the current Congress — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine — already identify as independents, though they have long caucused with Democrats and that’s not expected to change.
But senators are watching an independent candidate making waves this cycle on the campaign trail: Dan Osborn of Nebraska. He is running a competitive race against Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, and while Osborn has drawn Democratic support, he has insisted he would “caucus with everybody” if elected.
“Dan will use his leverage as an unbought independent in a tight Senate to deliver for Nebraskans. Dan’s never aligned himself with either party, and he won’t fall in line with a party boss. That’s why he won’t caucus with either party,” a spokesman for Osborn said in a statement.
Grose said being independent and not caucusing with a party “isolates the senators from decision making, unless it’s 50-50, and then they’re pivotal.”
Daschle pointed to the “benefits” of being in the majority and said anyone like Osborn would “have to think long and hard about whether he really wants to sacrifice being part of the majority for his independence.”
Spotlight on age
Another period of close majorities and shifting power came in the 1950s, when deaths and replacement appointments played a big role. That could potentially happen again next Congress, especially if it’s 50-50 or 51-49.
“Age is a funny thing these days,” Smith said, pointing to the chamber’s oldest member, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, who is 93 years old.
In Iowa’s gubernatorial race, Democrat Rob Sand has been leading Republican Zach Lahn in polling. “If they end up having a Democratic governor, the pressure on him to stay put is going to be pretty intense,” Smith said of Grassley. “I don’t really expect him to run for another term, but for the purposes of this next Congress, I don’t think he would intend … to go anywhere.”
A century ago, “it was not uncommon for five or six senators to depart for death or health reasons,” Smith noted. “That’s not common in the modern Senate, but if it’s truly 50-50, it seems almost impossible to avoid that possibility.”
Questions of age and health have haunted the Senate, where the median age is roughly 64 years old, and become louder in recent years with the death in office of the late Dianne Feinstein of California and others. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham unexpectedly died earlier this summer, and GOP leaders faced questions over McConnell’s extended hospitalization and three-month absence from the chamber earlier this year.
Grose said, “It’s really morbid and kind of sad to think about, but it has caused the control of the chamber and policy to matter in the past. It could happen again in a 50-50 Senate, now, with so many older senators. It’s a thing to definitely watch.”
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