Crossword Genius

What’s shown by a couple of Liberals briefly sharing equally? (5-5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

fifty-fifty

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'equally?' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'what's shown by a couple' is the wordplay.
'what's shown by' becomes 'fifty' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'a couple' shows that letters should be duplicated.
'fifty' doubled is 'FIFTY-FIFTY'.

'of liberals briefly sharing' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for fifty-fifty that I've seen before include "Equally" , "Evenly divided" , "Fairly" , "Evens" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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