With less than three weeks to go until election day. A lot of ink has been spilled over how state laws on the receipt and counting of absentee/mail-in ballots could delay knowing who won the presidential election.  But it could take even longer to know who will control the U.S. Senate.

One of the reasons is, of course, that the same delay in counting votes for the Presidential election could also delay counting the votes for the Senate elections.  However, given where the seats are and the current polling average, I expect that most Senate seats will be called on election night.  And it is possible that one party or the other will have a good enough night to get to 51 seats by midnight.

But there is a real chance that control of the Senate will come down to three races.  (At the very least, these three races will impact how comfortable the majority is.  Both parties have a handful of Senators who will occasionally split on a key vote.  Needless to say a 50-50 Senate with Vice-President Harris only voting in the case of a tie is going to be less likely to pass major legislation than a 53-47 Senate especially if the filibuster finally goes the way of the dodo.)  And in all three races, the election may not be over on election night. Continue Reading...