Bush held an extremely narrow lead in the vote by the end of election night, triggering an automatic recount. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a partial manual recount, but the Supreme Court of the United States effectively ordered an end to this process, on equal protection grounds, in the case of Bush v. Gore, leaving Bush with a victory in both the state and the election. In the concurrent congressional elections, Republicans retained a narrow majority in the House, but lost five seats in the Senate, leaving the partisan balance in the Senate at fifty Republicans and fifty Democrats. To replace O'Connor, the Bush administration wanted to find a female nominee, but was unsatisfied with the conventional options available. Bush settled on Miers, who had never served as a judge, but who had worked as a corporate lawyer and White House staffer.
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