In soccer’s World Cup, tied matches can go to extra time and then penalty kicks. The NHL has its own short overtime period and shootout, though playoff games continue until someone wins. In 2020, Tampa Bay beat Columbus 3-2 after five overtimes—a game that lasted about as long as three ordinary contests, or roughly 26 baseball innings.
Baseball takes a different approach: teams play extra innings until one leads after the home team has had its turn at bat. MLB has tried to speed things up by placing a runner on second base at the start of the 10th inning.
The Senate has no comparable, automatic way to resolve a tie over which party is in control.
The vice president, who also serves as president of the Senate, can break a tie on a roll-call vote. A tie vote itself fails, however, so the vice president need not cast a ballot when the outcome is already the one he or she wants.
But what happens if the next Senate is split 50-50? Depending on how close the races are, the result might not be clear on Wednesday morning—or even until much later.
None of the Senate’s 44 standing rules sets out a tiebreaker for deciding which party holds the majority. The Constitution doesn’t say that the president’s party automatically gets control, either. If the chamber is evenly divided, there is no firm procedure for choosing a majority and minority.
The Senate has faced ties before. It was evenly split in 1881 after resignations and political maneuvering, and again for a time in 1954, during a Congress in which a striking number of senators died. More recently, ties after the 2000 and 2020 elections led to agreements about how the chamber would operate.
The 2000 Senate result took until early December to settle, when Maria Cantwell’s victory over incumbent Slade Gorton in Washington brought the chamber to a 50-50 split. The 2020 balance wasn’t confirmed until January 6, 2021, two days after the new Congress began. Georgia runoffs won by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock produced the tie.
After the 2000 election, Republicans initially held the Senate. But Majority Leader Trent Lott and Democratic Leader Tom Daschle negotiated a power-sharing arrangement. Lott remained majority leader, and Republicans chaired the committees, but each committee had equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Daschle also received special powers on the Senate floor.
The agreement required approval by the full Senate. It could have faced two filibusters, each requiring 60 votes to overcome, followed by a majority vote to pass. In the end, all 100 senators supported it.
Republicans had reason to avoid Democrats blocking President George W. Bush’s agenda. Democrats, meanwhile, gained a meaningful role in running the chamber rather than being left entirely in the minority.
That precedent came up again in 2021. Mitch McConnell, then the Republican leader, pressed Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, to use the same terms Lott and Daschle had negotiated two decades earlier.
Whether senators would agree to another arrangement if the chamber is tied in 2027 is less certain. Donald Trump would still be president, with JD Vance serving as vice president and president of the Senate. How they would respond to a power-sharing deal is an open question.
The Senate is not required to designate a majority or minority leader. The position of majority leader emerged in the early 20th century; it is not mentioned in the Constitution. The Senate was designed as a body of equals, rather than one in which a single senator was expected to control its operations.
A 50-50 split could also raise questions about Vance’s role. As president of the Senate, he cannot take part in debate, though he can preside and break ties. It is unclear whether he would seek a larger role—or what that would look like, particularly with a possible 2028 presidential campaign ahead.
Without a power-sharing deal, the chamber’s presiding duties could fall to Vance, the current president pro tempore, Chuck Grassley, or a Democratic successor such as Patty Murray. The president pro tempore is traditionally the most senior senator from the majority party and stands third in the presidential line of succession, after the vice president and the House speaker. An agreement would help clarify who presides. Without one, Vance could find himself spending far more time in the Senate.
There is precedent for managing a tied Senate, but reaching an agreement depends on senators being willing to cooperate. If the result of a close contest—perhaps Alaska’s Senate race—is disputed, the political atmosphere could make that difficult.
The Senate often turns to precedent when its rules leave questions unanswered. Still, if senators cannot agree, the options for settling the matter may start to sound less formal: rock, paper, scissors, perhaps. Or penalty kicks.
