I Looked Up Every Vote My Senators Cast This Year. One Split Surprised Me.

Confession from a longtime lurker: I have lived in North Carolina my whole life and could not have told you three votes either of my senators cast. Not proud of it. Then I found the Senators tab on here, tapped my state, and ended up spending most of a rainy evening reading roll calls like they were box scores. Here is what an ordinary guy learned.

The split that surprised me

Both of my senators are Republicans, and on almost everything the scorecards track this year they voted the same way. Appropriations packages, the defense authorization, the resolution that ended the shutdown standoff, a long stack of regulatory disapprovals. Two columns of matching checkmarks. Then one bill breaks the pattern, and it happens to be the biggest one of the whole Congress.

On final passage, Budd voted yea and Tillis voted nay. Same party, same state, opposite answers on the headline bill of the term. Tillis had announced he was not seeking reelection around the time of that vote, which is context, not explanation, and the scorecard does not editorialize about it. It just shows the votes and links the full official record, which honestly is what sold me on this site. I can read the tally myself and make up my own mind.

Where they agreed

For the record, the agreement list is long: the full-year appropriations act, the FY2026 defense authorization, and the continuing resolution that reopened the government all got a yea from both. If you only read national headlines you would think senators do nothing but fight. The boring truth in the data is that most final-passage votes from my two are identical.

There is also a little agreement-with-you percentage on each scorecard that compares your own bill votes against theirs. Mine are close enough to embarrassing for one of them and I am not saying which.

Two columns of matching checkmarks, and then the biggest bill of the year breaks the pattern.

Anyway, if you have never looked up your own senators, the tab is under Government. It takes two taps and you will know more than I did after forty years of voting. That seems worth a rainy evening.

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