Mike Nofs won Mark Schauer’s old seat in the Michigan Senate last night, which extends the Republican majority in the Senate from 20-17 to 21-17. This changes little in terms of the odds that the Senate will approve new revenue bills, however, because the number of Republicans required to vote for such a bill remains two.

If two Republican Senators change sides to vote for such a bill, that would leave a 19-19 tie. Because a tie would be broken by the vote of Lt. Gov. John Cherry, the Democrats would presumably still win such a battle. The legislature has until Nov. 21 to find new revenues to reverse the deepest cuts in K-12 funding.