WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is crossing his fingers that Republicans won’t come close to capturing the six Senate seats they need to seize the majority in next week’s election. But for Vice President Joe Biden, there’s a silver lining if Republicans fall just short.
A GOP gain of five seats would effectively split the 100-member Senate between the two parties, instantly elevating the vice president’s role as the 101st senator. That would raise Biden’s own profile heading into 2016, when the former Delaware senator has said he may run for president again.
“It makes Joe Biden suddenly a hugely relevant Washington figure,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “It shows he’s a power player.”
A split Senate didn’t occur again until 1953, when Republican Majority Leader Robert Taft died and was replaced by a Democrat, leaving Vice President Richard Nixon as the would-be tiebreaker until other deaths gave Democrats the majority.
As president of the Senate, the vice president gets to cast the tie-breaking vote regardless of which party controls the Senate. But 50-50 ties are much more likely when the Senate’s membership is evenly split.
Republicans would need a net gain of five seats in November, but with Obama’s unpopularity dragging his party down, Democrats are bracing for even greater losses. Democratic hopes for averting a GOP majority rest in places like Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire and North Carolina — conservative-leaning states tough for Democrats to defend. See Full Story at News.Yahoo.com
