In a 50-50 Senate, every single vote matters. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema know this, and they've leveraged it with considerable sway. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski know this, and they listen for opportunities to show their constituents that they're "moderate."
It's so close, that if Donald Trump were still in the White House, without changing a single Senator, there would be a Republican majority (with Mike Pence instead of Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker).
That's why what just happened to Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) is so significant.
The Senator from New Mexico just suffered a stroke, at the young age of 49. It was such a shock that many of his colleagues in the Senate didn't even know it had happened until they were asked for statements. Senators from both sides of the aisle speak highly of him as a man and hope the best for his recovery. But politically, it's a shockwave.
There is no remote or proxy voting in the Senate. All votes must be done on the Senate floor, and now, Democrats are short one vote for at least four weeks, if not longer.
CNBC reports that Lujan is, "currently hospitalized in Albuquerque following decompressive surgery to ease swelling after suffering a stroke in his cerebellum. Lujan is expecting to return to the Senate in four to six weeks, barring any additional medical complications, two of the senator's senior aides told NBC."
At stake is nothing short of a Supreme Court seat, changes to the nation's voting laws, massive social spending bills, and basically any court appointment, big or small.
What just happened to Senator Lujan was extremely unexpected, and could be exceedingly consequential.
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Ryan Wiggins is the author of the extremely serious and not funny robot novel, The Life of Human, and is a writer and producer of television shows. He is the host of Wiggins America on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis.
