GA Special Election Night and OT; Update: Warnock Projected to Win, Ossoff Leads but Too close to Call
The GA special election is being held today and the polls close at 7ET / 6CT / 5 MT / 4 PT.
The stakes are high for the election. Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News writes:
The stakes are clear, but the outcome is a tossup in Georgia’s twin Senate runoff elections Tuesday that will determine control of the Senate and the launch trajectory of President-Elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration.
Both parties have pulled out all the stops in the monumental clash between Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Almost half a billion dollars has been spent on TV, radio and digital advertising since the November general election alone, easily making these the most expensive Senate races in history, and both Biden and outgoing President Donald Trump campaigned in the state Monday.
Many pollsters sat out the race as they take stock of misses in November, but experts and limited polling all point to close contests that will come down which party can do a better job turning out its voters.
“Georgia, the whole nation is looking to you,” Biden, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in decades, said at an Atlanta rally Monday.
What are some things to be looking for? The Atlanta Constitution-Journal suggests the following:
The polls are set to close at 7 p.m. ET on Election Day, and that’s when ballot counting can begin. Absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls to be counted. Military and overseas ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Friday will be counted, and absentee voters also have until Friday to fix any problems so their votes can be counted.
No ballots, including absentee ballots received in advance of Election Day, can be counted until the polls close. But a state election board rule requires county election officials to begin processing absentee ballots — verifying signatures on the outer envelope, opening the envelopes and scanning the ballots — before Election Day. That should speed things up on Election Night. Still, some absentee ballots received by mail or in drop boxes up until 7 p.m. on Election Day will still need to be processed.
WILL WE KNOW THE WINNER ON ELECTION NIGHT?
Just like in November, it’s possible Americans will go to bed without knowing who won. All indicators point to the likelihood of very tight margins in both races.
Media organizations, including The Associated Press, often declare winners on Election Night based on the results that are in, voter surveys and other political data.
But in a close race, more of the vote may need to be counted before the AP can call a winner.
Additionally, folks will be looking at certain counties, and especially at African-American turnout. Targetsmart, a polling firm NBC News is partnering with to examine the early vote posted this tweet last night:
How have Dems built an advantage in the early vote? Historic turnout from African-American voters. They increased their share of the early vote by 2.9 pts relative to the general election. White college voters increase by 0.1 pts. Meanwhile, white non-college turnout has lagged. pic.twitter.com/pABIJ6Xhkn
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) January 5, 2021
Politico reports that the Biden camp is skeptical of the Dems prevailing there.
Privately, Biden’s team does not expect to win the races, according to Democratic officials, but they are more optimistic about their chances than they were weeks ago. Though the president-elect narrowly won the state in November, they attribute that to a powerful anti-Trump sentiment that did not translate down the ballot. Perdue received about 88,000 more votes than Ossoff, and the top two Republicans combined got more than 636,000 votes than Warnock in the special election.
Makes one wonder what the internal polling for the campaigns looks like.
It's @GabrielSterling! 3,093,376 early in person+absentee votes cast before Election Day, as of latest update.
Columbia County issues – looks like the county didn't fully do Logic and Accuracy testing. Couple polls open will stay open mins later.
A Tift Co poll open until 7:40
— stephen fowler covers Georgia's election! (@stphnfwlr) January 5, 2021
AJC Runoff Election Results will be posted beginning at 7:30 p.m. NYT will be following it (based on the AP). MSNBC (who will bring out Steve Kornacki), CNN, and TYT also will have special coverage.
https://youtu.be/y5srrSSXAY8
Let’s go Ossoff and Warnock!
Update: courtesy AP via NYT:
Benny’s bar is open….
ty benny.💙
Thank you for this thread, Benny
I think a triple Irish, no coffee. 🙂 I need all the help I can get. Put my back out of whack today. Groan.
🐻hug
but not too hard. :o)
Thanks, PB!
Please take good care, pkhat.💜☮️
T and R, Ms. Benny!! ✊☮️😊👍
Heavily Dem DeKalb had 47,000 ED voters in the general
https://twitter.com/breaking_et/status/1346597860599590914?s=20
Heavily Dem Fulton County also doing great
https://twitter.com/breaking_et/status/1346606320464617472?s=20
No charges against Wisconsin officer who shot Jacob Blake
Had a friend/co-worker a few years ago that was a black guy, computer geek, who was paraplegic from being shot in the back by cops in Little Rock. He had a remarkably forgiving attitude.
Probably because he assumed a bloodbath in Georgia, and wouldn’t ever have to deliver. I do not believe Biden would have ever promised otherwise. He doesn’t give a fig if the little people live or die.
CNN is reporting big lines at GOP districts. my stomach is turning.
Most of the GOPs eggs are in today’s balloting.
IowaNiceinDC has a TOP diary that was running most of the day. This diary makes more sense to read than the word salad of David Nir. However, it’s not likely to be updated.
Read the county comparison chart here.
Early results, courtesy of NYT:
Not sure if they are counting today’s votes first.
Update:
More what we hope will continue this evening.
Sounds like early vote coming in fast before todays vote totals so blue is up by 70k with 5% in. So its gonna be a reverse of the presidential
Update: it’s tightened up a bit.
Looks like Fulton cty will be down by 78 k from the presidential, Thats a blue stronghold but higher than a normal non presidential
See jcb’s note upthread. It’s more positive than we thought. But it is early.
fingers are crossed
unsure if they’ve figured out a way to actually add voters on a machine, seems possible. not saying it’s happening, my mind always goes there.
I dont trust them due to the human factor of hacking
About 500 of them were called up , business downtown boarded up as a precaution
According to the NYT, the repubs are either meeting or underperforming their benchmarks in every vote batch reported so far. The dems are either meeting or exceeding their benchmarks. So far…
There is a race for the Public Service Commissioner as well. I grabbed this from TOP. Notice all of the percentages are similar (click on image to read more clearly):
The PSC Dem candidate is now behind the R candidate. Personally, I think he (the Dem) won’t win.
Looks like AOC, Rashida, Katie Porter were reassigned to Oversight, but Cori will be joining them. I know AOC wanted environment. Hope she’s OK with this.
always suspicious, i am. looks like a bunch of them and makes me wonder how much power this committe has to effect change.
It’s not a bad place to cut your teeth though. Still wondering about AOC and if she’s disappointed.
They surely wouldn’t load it up with progressives if it had any clout.
Oversight means to keep a watchful eye on. All the gals on there have both the smarts and common sense to make it a very powerful committee. All 4 are very good choices, and my money is on them.