Democrats confront stubborn math in final voting rights push: The Note

You could track the year by charting Democrats' frustrations – around messaging failures, legislative logjams, bad breaks of luck and, always, simple congressional math.

The TAKE with Rick Klein

You could track the year by charting Democrats' frustrations – around messaging failures, legislative logjams, bad breaks of luck and, always, simple congressional math.

So it is that the party goes into a final week or so of potential lawmaking in 2021 with anger and infighting that will follow it well into 2022. Realistic chances of passing the Build Back Better bill before Christmas are out the window because nothing has fundamentally changed about what it takes to get 50 Senate votes.

In its place at the moment is a last push around federal voting rights protections -- bills for which the threshold, at least for now, is 60 votes. Democrats maneuvered around the 60-vote hurdle this week to raise the debt ceiling, and Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is leading the charge for that to be seen as a precedent.