What if the Republicans Had Won the Senate

Alternative history is a popular niche in fiction. What would the world look like if Pickett had carried the day at Gettysburg  What if the Japanese had prevailed at Midway How different would current events be if President Kennedy’s assassination had been thwarted

A similar exercise is being conducted in Washington these days as President Obama and Congressional Republicans engage in a series of grinding showdowns over fiscal policy, nominations, gun laws and immigration changes, with more to come. In light of the implications of the partisan divide, it seems a fair question to ask: What would the political landscape in Washington look like if the Republicans had won the Senate last November

Given how the election played out, it isn’t a stretch to imagine an Obama presidency and a Republican Senate, along with continued Republican control of the House.  With Mr. Obama’s re-election, Republicans needed to gain four seats to win the majority.  Democrats won five seats in states won by Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, four of them in races where Republicans started out with big advantages: Indiana, Missouri, Montana and North Dakota.

Victories there would have made Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky the majority leader while making Mr. Obama miserable, since a Republican Senate held the potential to significantly reshape the contours of the president’s second term.

It is clear that if Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Denny Rehberg and Rick Berg were now casting votes in the Senate, the national political dynamic would be sharply different. In the building fight over the across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect Friday, the Republican-controlled Congress would probably be dictating terms to Mr. Obama, sending him legislation that would redistribute the cuts away from the Pentagon to social programs that Democrats would be unable to protect.

Former Senator Chuck Hagel would not be about to clear a filibuster to become secretary of defense! , but wou! ld instead be bottled up in committee, perhaps along with John O. Brennan, awaiting a vote on his nomination to head the Central Intelligence Agency, and Jack Lew, the nominee for Treasury secretary. John Kerry would still be at the State Department, but his confirmation might have been bumpier.

Even the lame-duck session would have been different. It seems implausible that Mr. Obama would have been able to stare down soon-to-be-majority Congressioal Republicans over the Bush tax cuts. Instead, Republicans could have held out for all the cuts to remain in place and then tried to force the issue when the 113th Congress convened with them in control.

The Newtown shootings would still have spurred discussion in Congress about tighter gun laws, but it is highly doubtful that debate about new background checks and limits on magazine size would be as serious as it is. As for immigration policy, the lack of Hispanic support that helped doom Mr. Romney’s presidential bid would have provided strong reason for Republicans to explore changes in immigration law. But would a path to citizenship be on the table, given conservative resistance

And instead of using nominations to try to pry information out of the White House, Senate Republicans would have ! been empo! wered to conduct oversight hearings of the kind that can tie a second-term administration in knots.

Then there is the one aspect of a Republican Senate that might most frighten Democrats.

“Ted Cruz would be in the majority,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat re-elected in November, said about the confrontational Republican newcomer from Texas, who is already making his presence felt in the minority.

Republicans acknowledge that they have occasionally given wistful thought to what might have been.

“Maybe after a few bers,” said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio.  He, like other Republicans, believes that Congress and the country would be much better off if Republicans had taken over as a counterweight to the president, creating a unified Congress able to reach some agreement on thorny policy issues.

“If those five seats had gone the other way, we’d have a budget right now, the appropriations process would be working, it would just be very different,” Mr. Portman said. “It happened over two election cycles, so they kind of add up, but if we can even get a slim majority we can get a budget.”

Ms. Klobuchar said she thought the divided Congress offered more potential for true compromise than a Republican House and Senate constantly confronting a Democratic president.  With the Senate in Democratic hands and the House! under Re! publicans, lawmakers will have to reach consensus agreements on the tough issues of guns, immigration and spending if they want to see them enacted.

“I think this is just a better situation,” she said. “Instead of Congress versus the president, you at least have something in the middle, which is the Senate.”

Moving forward, Republicans will no doubt continue to rue the losses that kept them in the Senate minority. For instance, a Supreme Court seat could open up, and Republicans won’t have the same leverage they might have had to push Mr. Obama toward a pick that could clear a Republican-led Senate.

But that might just be more incentive for Republicans to try to seize that majority in the elections next year.

“You have to live with the reality of it,” said Senator John Barrasso, Reublican of Wyoming. “You just work that much harder for 2014.”

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

Follow Carl Hulse on Twitter at @hillhulse.