How many Democrats, Republicans, and independents make up the 118th U.S. Senate as of November 25, 2025?

1. The straightforward count and its documentary sources

The most direct source for the 118th Senate’s party composition lists Democrats with 47 seats, Republicans with 49, and four senators designated as “Other Parties” or Independents, summing to 100 seats, and is presented on the Senate’s own party‑division page ^[1]. Independent compacts with caucuses can affect functional control, but the raw party counts published by the Senate are this 47/49/4 split ^[1]. Independent and third‑party labels are captured separately from the formal Democratic and Republican tallies on that official Senate record ^[1].

2. Why this matters: timing, control and the congressional calendar

The 118th Congress is a closed historical interval—January 3, 2023, through January 3, 2025—which means its official membership and party ratios are fixed in the historical record even after the new Congress convened ^{[4] [3]}. Reporting and data aggregators therefore treat the 118th’s party composition as a historical fact: sources such as Ballotpedia and Statista reproduce the same baseline breakdown used by scholars and journalists examining legislation and committee ratios enacted or organized during that two‑year term ^{[3] [2]}.

3. Corroboration and caveats in secondary trackers

Independent trackers and compendia that monitor seats by state and incumbency—like The Green Papers and Statista—record the same overall party distribution across the 118th, and are useful for seat‑by‑seat verification though they present additional details such as vacancies, resignations, or special elections when they occurred ^{[5] [2]}. Those trackers note transactional items—deaths, resignations, appointments—that can temporarily change who sits in a seat during a Congress; the Senate’s party‑division table aggregates the settled composition ^{[5] [1]}.

4. The post‑118th context and why some outlets emphasize different numbers

By the start of the 119th Congress (January 2025), party control shifted—multiple sources indicate Republicans won a Senate majority in the 2024 cycle and the 119th began with a Republican majority—so coverage after January 2025 naturally focuses on the 119th’s balance rather than the 118th’s historical composition, which can cause confusion for readers looking at reports dated in late 2025 ^[6]. Bloomberg’s late‑2025 analyses and congressional committee‑ratio briefs emphasize current control and leadership for the 119th, not the closed 118th counts ^{[7] [8]}.

5. Limitations and what the sources do not claim

The Senate’s party‑division page and the other provided sources give the aggregate party counts and note transactional occurrences, but the available reporting in this packet does not provide a day‑by‑day roster of which four senators were listed as Independents or the exact dates of temporary vacancies within the 118th beyond summary mentions ^{[1] [5]}. Where the provided sources are silent—such as detailed seat‑by‑seat change logs on every calendar date after January 3, 2025—this analysis does not speculate and relies on the Senate’s published party‑division numbers and corroborating secondary sources ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

6. Bottom line

As a matter of record for the 118th U.S. Senate (the two‑year Congress that ran 2023–2025), the chamber was composed of 47 Democrats, 49 Republicans and 4 Independents (total 100 seats) as recorded by the Senate’s party‑division documentation and reproduced by independent trackers ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Subsequent coverage in late 2025 centers on the 119th Congress and its Republican majority, which is a different, later chamber ^[6].