By the time Georgia voters elected Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) to a full term in December’s runoff, control of the Senate was already established. Warnock became the Democratic caucus’s 51st member, joining 48 sitting or incoming members of his party and two independents.
When Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) left the Democratic Party to become an independent a few weeks later, the math still didn’t change: The Democrats would come into the 118th caucus with a two-vote majority.
It hasn’t worked out that way. In the 82 votes cast in the Senate so far this year, Democrats have had an advantage among voting members of at least two votes only 30 percent of the time. In part, it’s because the party’s caucus has seen two members, Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), missing dozens of votes for health reasons. But, in part, it’s because only 26 of the 51 members of the caucus have missed no votes at all.
The party’s saving grace? A lot of Republicans have missed votes, too.
In fact, none of the 82 votes that the Senate has taken this year has seen every seated member casting a vote. On average, five senators have been missing or failed to weigh in on each vote. (A senator failing to vote doesn’t always mean they’re absent, though it usually does.)
Six votes had only one senator not casting a vote — Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who missed votes on Feb. 14 and 15 due to surgery for prostate cancer. Casey is one of 11 senators (seven of them members of the Democratic caucus) who has missed at least 10 votes.
Since the Senate’s 22nd vote of the year, cast on Feb. 16, at least four senators have failed to cast a vote. After Fetterman and Feinstein, each of whom has missed at least 60 votes, the senator who’s missed the most votes is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He was hospitalized and then in rehabilitation following a fall in March.
The absences have meant that in 57 of 82 votes cast — 70 percent of the time — the Democratic caucus’s advantage has been smaller than two votes. In 39 of those votes — 48 percent of the time — the caucus has either seen the same number of voting members as the Republican caucus or, on eight occasions, had fewer voting members.
Members of the Democratic caucus have, on average, missed more votes than Republicans, 4.7 missed votes to 3.3. But Republicans have been more likely to miss votes; only 21 Republicans haven’t missed any votes, compared to 26 members of the Democratic caucus.
On the graphic below, bolded names are senators who’ve missed at least 10 votes.
Luckily for Democrats — or, really, not coincidentally — there haven’t been many critical votes for which they needed their full caucus. But absences don’t solely affect final votes. They also make it harder to conduct other business, like committee hearings. The Democrats’ narrow majority gives them chairmanships for committees, but with senators out of commission, they can’t do as much with that power.
These absences are also not unrelated to the fact that the Senate is so old, leading to more physical issues and slower recovery times. America is old in general, a function of the aging baby boom, but in a body of only 100 members, having some unable to fulfill their duties for health reasons has a larger effect.
The good news for both parties (not to mention the senators) is that Fetterman and McConnell are out of treatment. Depending on Feinstein’s health, the caucus may be close to full strength when it returns from its current “state work period,” Senate-speak for “vacation.”
Given that it has been eight months since 100 senators cast a vote, though, don’t get your hopes up for a full contingent to be at work.
