Yesterday I posted a story covering an impending and large scale Democrat defection from the administration over its mismanagement of the nuclear negotiations with Iran. In that story, it looked like there were about 63 votes to override any Obama veto of a more aggressive sanctions bill by the Congress. Today it became obvious how fast support was slipping away from the administration:

A Senate committee on Thursday easily approved legislation that would impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran if ongoing talks about its nuclear arms program remain stalled.

The Banking Committee, in a bipartisan 18-4 vote, approved a new Iran sanctions bill crafted by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and [mc_name name=’Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’K000360′ ], R-Ill.

This 18-4 vote indicates there may be more than enough votes, right now, to override a veto. Based on actions to date this is what the vote looks like:

52 Republicans (everyone but Flake and Paul)
10 Democrats on the Menendez letter indicating support (Menendez, Schumer, Blumenthal, Peters, Casey, Cardin, Coons, Manchin, Donnelly, Stabenow)
3 Democrats on Banking who voted ‘yes’ today but weren’t on the Menendez letter (Tester, Heitkamp, Warner)
3 Democrats who cosponsored Kirk-Menendez during its last iteration (Booker, Bennett, Gillibrand)

Or a total of 68 votes. Given the mad political skilz of the White House they can probably take this number at increase it to 80 or so votes by employing petulance and stupidity, their preferred negotiating tools in all domestic situations.