The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting ‘what-if’ story today (subscription required). If Democrats won every single election up for grabs today, would there be enough pro-stem-cell members of Congress to overturn President Bush’s veto on federal financing for research on new lines of embryonic stem cells?

The short answer: no. A two-thirds majority of both chambers of Congress – the 435 total seats in the House of Representatives, and the 100 in the Senate — are needed to override a presidential veto. Democrats led the faction voting against Bush’s veto this summer, but plenty of Republicans also crossed party lines. But even given the bipartisan support for stem-cell research, the Chronicle analysis concludes that the voting records of candidates show that there simply aren’t enough pro-stem-cell bodies to make the two-thirds overriding majority.

Looks like it’ll be 2008 before there could be any major changes in stem-cell funding in the US.