Now Republican fears are growing that Democrats could lock in a filibuster-proof 60-40 majority in Congress.
The market is discounting an Obama presidency and a 60-seat filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority.
In the Senate, Republicans would like to boost their majority to a filibuster-proof 60 seats.
Even if the Democrats don't win a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate, there are Republicans, including U.S. Sen.
Neither party has had a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate since the 95th Congress, from 1977 to 1979.
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Add the votes of liberal Republicans like Arlen Specter and Susan Collins and the Democrats may reach a filibuster-proof majority.
Democrats in the Senate are hoping to win 60 seats -- enough to secure a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
They could reach the magic filibuster-proof 60 if Al Franken is ever officially declared the winner of last November's Minnesota race.
And Republicans suffered a further setback on Monday in their fight to stop the Democrats winning a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
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But unless Republicans win a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate, he will not be able to repeal Obamacare or Dodd-Frank outright.
Also, their influence is credited with electing a Republican to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, dropping the Democrats below the filibuster-proof 60-vote majority and demoralizing them.
If Barack Obama wins with a near filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, we know that taxes on income, savings and investment will go up.
They need to pick up five seats for a filibuster-proof majority.
In principle, that means that it could die in the Senate next week, since the Democrats are currently two votes short of a filibuster-proof majority there.
Last year's midterm elections produced a Republican wave that enabled the party to take back the House of Representatives and to eliminate the Democrats' filibuster-proof Senate majority.
The Republicans have targeted Ms Boxer as one of five vulnerable Democrats they need to unseat in order to achieve their dream of a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate.
In Congress , the Democrats increased their majority in the House and picked up at least five seats in the Senate, which would leave them at 56, four short of a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority.
It will be no small victory for Republicans to deny Democrats a filibuster-proof 60-seat supermajority or even a working one of 58 seats if you add Arlen Specter and Susan Collins to the Dem caucus.
Obama, near the end of his inaugural address on Monday, made what appeared to be an oblique reference to the partisan battles between himself, the GOP-controlled House and the Senate -- where Democrats have control but do not have a filibuster-proof majority.
After Senate leaders jockeyed for days over procedural issues tied to consideration of the bills, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, unexpectedly announced Wednesday morning that Republicans would agree to Democratic demands and hold back-to-back votes requiring neither side to garner a filibuster-proof 60-vote margin.
If the Republicans had met their pollsters' more generous predictions (at one time these included House gains of a score or more seats and the five seats in the Senate needed to produce a filibuster-proof majority), they would clearly have portrayed victory as the people's permission to drive the president from office.
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