It’s Election Day in Georgia, and voters in the state will decide the final two members of the Senate. The outcome will determine whether Democrats control the presidency, House, and Senate for the first time since 2011, or if Republicans will keep hold of one chamber and continue to gridlock legislative efforts for the next two years.
In November, Democrat Jon Ossoff challenged Republican incumbent David Perdue, and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock challenged pro-Trump incumbent Kelly Loeffler in a rare instance when—because of a special election stemming from the retirement of Sen. Johnny Isakson—both Georgia Senate seats came up for election in the same year. None of the candidates received 50 percent of the vote, sending voters back to the polls for Tuesday’s runoff. As things stand, Republicans have 50 seats in the Senate. If they win at least one seat, they will have full control of the Senate. If Democrats manage to win both, the Senate will be tied, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the decisive vote in a stalemate. Here’s what you need to know as results start coming in.
What will we know on Tuesday?
It’s possible that the outcome will be clear tonight. It’s also possible that it will take several days. A spokesperson for the Secretary of State said to expect a delay. Even though mail-in ballots and early votes have already been processed, they cannot be counted until this evening; plus, mail-in ballots that arrive on Election Day will clog the system, as officials will need to check their signatures before physically loading them into the machines.
What should we be looking for as the results come in?
The early results won’t necessarily tell us much about the race because of the delay in processing some mail-in ballots, but there are a few things to look out for: strong turnout from Black voters and young voters would be a promising sign for the Democrats. Stronger in-person voting numbers, particularly outside of the Atlanta area and in the northern and southern corners of the state, might help Republicans. Higher usage of mail-in ballots by older voters would also help for Republicans.
Who was ahead in the polls?
According to FiveThirtyEight, both Democrats have a slight edge over their opponents. Ossoff leads Perdue by 1.8 points, and Warnock leads Loeffler by 2.1 points. But polls were off on Senate races that were much less competitive in November. It’s possible that each party wins one of the seats on Tuesday. While most voters are likely to cast a single-party ballot, there’s a chance that some marginal differences could lead to a split outcome. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver lays out some of the possibilities here, concluding that Warnock has a stronger shot than Ossoff, partially because of Loeffler’s position further to the right.
What can we guess from the November results?
A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in Georgia for 20 years; then again, a Democratic presidential candidate hadn’t won the state in 30 years until Joe Biden’s victory. November upended some of the traditional thinking about Georgia, but Democrats in the state shouldn’t expect one win necessarily means another. Republican Senate candidates received more votes than Democratic candidates in November, outperforming Trump. Even when just looking at the four candidates in the runoffs, Perdue won more votes than Ossoff. (Loeffler faced another Republican in November, while Perdue faced only a libertarian candidate as competition on the right.) What we do know from the election is that Democrats turned out enough voters in the Atlanta suburbs to make the Biden win happen. The Atlanta metropolitan area will still be key to this race.
What can we know from turnout?
So far, that a lot of people are casting ballots. More than 3 million people voted early, surpassing the total number of voters in the state’s last runoff Senate election in 2008. The Atlanta metropolitan area has seen strong turnout, which is a good sign for Democrats. But while early voting turnout was lower in the more conservative parts of the state, Republican pundits have reassured anxious spectators that Republicans tend to turn out in higher numbers for in-person voting.
How does Trump affect all of this?
One big unknown is the effect of his recent behavior on the race. One effect has been to constrain the Republican candidates, who cannot campaign as outsiders standing up to Biden while they must publicly maintain that Trump won the election—and who have had to dodge questions about the president’s actions. Trump’s insistence that the November election was a fraud may cause some supporters to stay home in protest. Or they may listen to his recent exhortations to vote. Some former Republican voters may return to the fold in hopes of thwarting the Democratic agenda, or because Trump is no longer on the ticket.
Will there be a red mirage?
In November, we saw a “red mirage” when in-person votes were counted first and offered an overly optimistic outlook for Republicans. (The mail ballots, which were counted last, favored Biden, leaving a surge of Democratic votes until the end.) This same phenomenon may happen again in Georgia, but there are signs that older, Republican-leaning voters requested more mail-in ballots than in November, meaning the effect may be less pronounced.
What are the odds of a recount?
Decently high. The losing candidate can request a recount if the margin is within 0.5 percent of the vote. These races will be close, so such an outcome seems possible. And even if the margin is larger, the secretary of state can grant a recount if a candidate thinks there has been some kind of error or fraud. Take a guess how a Democratic victory would be received in the current climate.
from Slate Magazine https://ift.tt/3pUY2BA
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