As I write this, the New York Times live forecast needles show the Democrats as slight favorites to win both of the runoff Senate races in Georgia. Things look a bit better for them than the general election results, but maybe a bit more Republican than the polls suggested.
So far, counties that have fully reported are on average three points more Democratic than the presidential election results in those counties. These counties aren’t representative of Georgia as a whole, though; something surprising could happen in Atlanta.
Needles (get it?) to say, Democrats aren’t all the way home yet, but this is looking good for them so far.
Join me here (and not on Twitter) to chat about the results as the rest roll in.
EDIT: This looks over to me, folks, so I’m abandoning the thread. Thanks to all who participated! I’m leaving the comments unlocked so y’all can still chat, but won’t be coming back regularly anymore.
Here is a comment inspired by my parents, who I am currently video-chatting with. They are watching CNN and shouting at the TV, where results are oscillating around 50-50. I have told them to turn it off and look at the NYT needle because it can "time travel" for you. This advice applies to all of you readers as well.
Update: my parents (they're Democrats) are now watching the needle and are much calmer. I am not a doctor, but I would recommend this strategy to anyone with high blood pressure.
The reason I keep saying that we need to wait for results in and around Atlanta is because the groups that live there (college-educated whites, African Americans) are under-represented in other parts of the state. If they have a turnout problem we won't know until we get the results. But That's really the only reason to hold off on any sort of Dem bullishness right now, IMO.
How accurate do you reckon the CNN exit polls – which showed Dems doing worse than November among college-educated whites and better than November among African Americans – are?
Curious for Mr. Morris's take, but: Meh, exit polls should not really be paid attention to until they're weighted to results -- and that's especially true in this pandemic year.
i read a comment a couple of weeks ago stating that projections by whoever Trump gave data to four years ago, so projections from those people favor Dems and that would be why Mitch McConnell et Co are not heavily invested... they believe they're losing. I wish I could find that again.
Appreciate you providing us your thoughts tonight, Elliott. I noticed you hadn't posted anything on Twitter earlier, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this.
Regardless of the results, I'm having a glass of Nikka miyagikyo. I'll have one glass tonight and another when the book comes out, probably in early 2022.
Based on what you’re seeing thus far, who is pacing best? I remember during Jones AL race in ‘17 watching the results and a coworker of mine said that Jones had already won based on the fact that the only places that hadn’t come in yet would be voting overwhelmingly for him.
Democrats are doing better than they need (IE in both races) pretty much everywhere. If you take the county results and match them up with the November results, Ossoff and Warnock are clearly beating a 50-50 benchmark. I'm only holding out for Atlanta results, which could be a wild card (but probably won't be).
Obviously, the election results will be taken as a judgment on the efficacy of candidates' strategies, along with any impact of the President's election denialism/autogolpe attempts. Is there any way to evaluate that more directly/look at variables closer to that? Or is that kinda just the limit we're faced with?
I heard a lot in the last couple days about a "red mirage" tonight, with Democratic-leaning votes from Atlanta, etc. coming in later. Is that still likely? Is the fact that the Dems are still up at this point a good sign? Thanks for all your great and insightful work!
The Atlanta results haven't come in yet and usually take longer to count purely because of the sheer volume of ballots. A big dump of GOP-friendly election day votes from ATL are really the only thing that could be a huge boon for Loeffler/Purdue, IMO.
Here is a comment inspired by my parents, who I am currently video-chatting with. They are watching CNN and shouting at the TV, where results are oscillating around 50-50. I have told them to turn it off and look at the NYT needle because it can "time travel" for you. This advice applies to all of you readers as well.
Update: my parents (they're Democrats) are now watching the needle and are much calmer. I am not a doctor, but I would recommend this strategy to anyone with high blood pressure.
But if you were watching it in 2016...your blood pressure was much higher than tonight.
I literally just texted my parents the same thing. They're watching CNN and I told them to watch the NYT needle. LOL.
Here's another update, from Dave Wasserman at the Cook Political Report:
"The first heavily Dem rural county, Macon Co., is fully reporting:
Ossoff: +25.0
Warnock: +25.6
Biden (Nov.): +21.3
And turnout is at 91.8% of November levels. Possibly the single best piece of data for the Dems yet."
Macon County is in the lower half of the state, but if Atlanta looks like this, then it's over.
The reason I keep saying that we need to wait for results in and around Atlanta is because the groups that live there (college-educated whites, African Americans) are under-represented in other parts of the state. If they have a turnout problem we won't know until we get the results. But That's really the only reason to hold off on any sort of Dem bullishness right now, IMO.
How accurate do you reckon the CNN exit polls – which showed Dems doing worse than November among college-educated whites and better than November among African Americans – are?
Curious for Mr. Morris's take, but: Meh, exit polls should not really be paid attention to until they're weighted to results -- and that's especially true in this pandemic year.
Yeah, I would rather not make direct exit poll comparisons at this point.
i read a comment a couple of weeks ago stating that projections by whoever Trump gave data to four years ago, so projections from those people favor Dems and that would be why Mitch McConnell et Co are not heavily invested... they believe they're losing. I wish I could find that again.
Appreciate you providing us your thoughts tonight, Elliott. I noticed you hadn't posted anything on Twitter earlier, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this.
I’m here for the raw R model outputs!
Sorry to disappoint... :)
It was worth a try.... Thanks for all your hard work this cycle!
One side note - when is the book out? And, what is the best bourbon to pair with a Georgia Senate run off? - I am having some Makers Mark
Regardless of the results, I'm having a glass of Nikka miyagikyo. I'll have one glass tonight and another when the book comes out, probably in early 2022.
Suntory Royal for me
Based on what you’re seeing thus far, who is pacing best? I remember during Jones AL race in ‘17 watching the results and a coworker of mine said that Jones had already won based on the fact that the only places that hadn’t come in yet would be voting overwhelmingly for him.
Democrats are doing better than they need (IE in both races) pretty much everywhere. If you take the county results and match them up with the November results, Ossoff and Warnock are clearly beating a 50-50 benchmark. I'm only holding out for Atlanta results, which could be a wild card (but probably won't be).
I think Democrats are doing fine in Atlanta as of right now, we'll see what happens.
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1346628917025779718 Good point here, question is more outer-ring suburban Atlanta, whose Dem lean is recent (and will it be maintained?)
WARNOCK WON: DECISION DESK - https://twitter.com/DecisionDeskHQ/status/1346671627518566400
Is there any data on how Latinos are breaking in GA? Mainly if Warnock/Ossoff are performing better or worse than Biden in Nov with Latinos?
Interesting that Warnock is running ahead of Ossoff, moderately but noticeably, when he was almost exclusively the target of GOP attacks (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/politics/georgia-senate-debate-warnock-loeffler.html). What's going on there, do you think? Candidate quality, incumbency advantage, something else?
Candidate quality and some residual coalition networking, I think.
Obviously, the election results will be taken as a judgment on the efficacy of candidates' strategies, along with any impact of the President's election denialism/autogolpe attempts. Is there any way to evaluate that more directly/look at variables closer to that? Or is that kinda just the limit we're faced with?
Hopefully, the polls will tell us after the fact, but we have to do an uncomfortable amount of speculation there.
I heard a lot in the last couple days about a "red mirage" tonight, with Democratic-leaning votes from Atlanta, etc. coming in later. Is that still likely? Is the fact that the Dems are still up at this point a good sign? Thanks for all your great and insightful work!
The Atlanta results haven't come in yet and usually take longer to count purely because of the sheer volume of ballots. A big dump of GOP-friendly election day votes from ATL are really the only thing that could be a huge boon for Loeffler/Purdue, IMO.