WASHINGTON — Democrats as soon as Tuesday night were poised to pass legislation to raise the statutory debt limit by $2.5 trillion, an amount intended to give the Treasury Department borrowing room to make it past the midterm elections and into 2023.

The Senate voted along party lines, 50-49, to send the measure to the House on Tuesday afternoon after adopting a motion to proceed by the same margin hours earlier. That motion triggered up to 10 hours of debate, equally divided between the parties, under the truncated process both parties agreed to previously. But both sides agreed to yield back chunks of their time to speed things up.

The Senate vote indicates this year’s debt limit drama appears headed for a tidy conclusion after months of partisan fighting and uncertainty that rattled financial markets.

If the debt limit wasn’t raised in time and the Treasury Department ran out of cash, the government would have to prioritize which financial obligations to meet. While U.S. bondholders might get their interest payments on time, other benefits might not go out, amounting to fiscal tightening that some economists said could spark a recession.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told lawmakers she needed them to raise the borrowing cap by Dec. 15, or face the possibility of missed payments.

The $2.5 trillion figure would be the largest dollar increase in debt ceiling history, bigger than the $2.1 trillion lawmakers agreed to raise the limit by in three stages as part of a 2011 deficit-cutting package. It would be a smaller percentage boost than the 2011 law or a 2010 measure that raised the limit by $1.9 trillion, each of which lifted the borrowing cap by roughly 15%.

The debt ceiling will pass $30 trillion for the first time, to nearly $31.4 trillion, and likely to become law without any Republicans.

During debate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell talked about the social spending and climate package, largely financed by tax increases, and about rampant inflation.

“Later today every Senate Democrat is going to vote on party lines to raise our nation’s debt limit by trillions of dollars,” McConnell said on the floor. “If they jam through another reckless taxing and spending spree, this massive debt increase will just be the beginning. More printing and borrowing to set up more reckless spending to cause more inflation, to hurt working families even more.”

Despite such rhetoric, Schumer and McConnell worked behind the scenes to cut a deal creating a temporary exemption to the Senate’s cloture rules for this debt ceiling increase.

That mechanism was attached to separate legislation since a number of Senate Republicans wouldn’t give unanimous consent to allow debate on a debt limit bill, and there weren’t enough Senate Republicans to vote for cloture, which requires 60 votes.