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Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today. It's Friday, February 4th. I'm Erica Pandy,

filling in for Nala Budu. Here's what we're watching today. Hundreds of thousands of US

bridges are in need of major repair. Plus, how Americans really feel about the 2022 Winter Olympics?

But first, the tenuous balance of power in the Senate is today's one big thing.

Democrats are down a crucial vote in the Senate. The balance of power in the Senate shifted

after Senator Ben Ray Luhan from New Mexico suffered a stroke on Tuesday. He's expected to make

a full recovery, but his absence will shake things up in the 50-50 Senate until his return four

to six weeks from now. Here to explain the stakes for President Biden's legislative agenda,

and Supreme Court nominee, is Axios' politics editor, Margaret Taliv.

Hi, Margaret. Hey, Erica. Great to be with you. So, Margaret, will Republicans control the Senate

until Luhan returns? I mean, the truth is that nobody has been controlling the Senate,

and now even less will Democrats actually be in control of the Senate. We've seen this before

in recent American history is that when your party controls 50-50 and you need the vice president

to break the vote, you can lose no one. When you have a health emergency, you just don't know how

long recovery is going to take. In Senator Luhan's case, they have estimated four to six weeks,

but think about the agenda in those four to six weeks. Of course, as we know, there's a Supreme

...