8:18pm At about 3:40am Washington time, the Electoral College vote was finally certified. As expected, Biden won by 306 votes to 232.
8:15pm The last post was about the objection to Arizona. For Pennsylvania, 138 Republicans objected to democracy, with just 64 opposed. That’s 68% of House Republicans who objected to democracy. In the Senate, only seven of the 51 current Republicans objected.
4:20pm In the House, 121 Republicans voted to object, with 83 opposed, so 59% of all House Republicans that cast a vote objected to democracy, with Democrats unanimously opposed. The roll call shows that House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy voted to object.
2:15pm Despite the riots, six anti-democratic Republican senators have objected to the certification of the Electoral College. Their names are: Cruz, Hyde-Smith, Kennedy, Hawley, Marshall and Tuberville. Tuberville defeated Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama in November.
12:15pm In a YouGov snap poll on today’s riots at the Capitol, by 62-32 voters saw them as a threat to democracy, but Republicans disagreed by 68-27. Overall, voters thought Trump should be immediately removed from office by 50-42, but Republicans disagreed by 85-10.
12:07pm Ossoff’s lead now up to 0.8% or over 25,000 votes, with more Dem friendly votes left to count.
9:15am Not the most important news today, but US media have CALLED the Georgia regular Senate election for Jon Ossoff, who currently leads Perdue by 0.6% or over 27,000 votes. The Senate will be tied at 50-50, with Democrats making three net gains this election cycle. Kamala Harris will have the casting vote to give Democrats control of the Senate.
7:33am Since the November election, Trump and his henchmen have ranted about how the election was stolen. The violent protests in the US Capitol today are a direct result of these completely unfounded election fraud claims.
7:22am Trump supporters have stormed the US Capitol as Congress was supposed to meet to certify the Electoral College vote. Mike Pence will not attempt to overturn the results, and Mitch McConnell has condemned those who would object.
7:15am Thursday The vast majority of outstanding votes are in Democratic counties, so both Ossoff and Warnock will extend their leads.
9:11pm Ossoff now leads by 0.4% with 98% in. The projection is still for an Ossoff win by 1.1%.
6:24pm Some more of DeKalb is in, putting Warnock up by 1.0% and Ossoff retakes the lead from Perdue by 0.2% or 9.5k votes. The networks and the AP have CALLED for Warnock.
5:37pm Apparently there’s a technical glitch in DeKalb county that is delaying the count of votes that should put Ossoff over the top.
5:30pm A small turnout differential in Democrats’ favour was partly responsible for the result. Also, in November Perdue won by 1.8% while Biden defeated Trump by 0.3% in Georgia. There were a small number of Biden/Perdue voters who this time likely voted Dem.
5:26pm Compared with November, turnout was slightly higher in Biden and Black precincts than in Trump and rural precincts, but not much higher. Overall turnout will be about 90% of November levels.
4:40pm There are still votes remaining in DeKalb, which is only at 91% reported. When those votes report, Ossoff should take and keep the lead.
3:56pm Wasserman CALLS the regular Senate election for Ossoff. That gives Democrats two Senate gains from Georgia, and the Senate is tied 50-50. Kamala Harris will break the tie for the Dems.
3:40pm Perdue and Ossoff almost tied now, with Perdue ahead by a few hundred votes.
3:36pm Perdue’s lead down to just 0.08%.
3:30pm Perdue leads by 0.2% with 95% in, but there’s still more metro Atlanta left, while Rep counties are used up.
3:19pm A big Dem dump reported, and now it’s Warnock by 0.8% and Perdue by just 0.07% with 95% in.
3:10pm Despite a current Perdue lead of 3% with 91% in, the Needle has Ossoff winning by 1.0% with a 92% win probability.
2:56pm With 90% in, Perdue’s margin drops back to 2.6%, and the Needle has Ossoff winning by 1.0% with an 88% win probability.
2:47pm The Needle goes to at most 95% win probability, and Warnock is at that point. After that, it waits for official calls.
2:42pm While Perdue currently leads Ossoff by 3.0% with 87% reporting, the Needle thinks Ossoff will win by 1.0% and gives him an 81% chance to win. There are many more heavily Dem favouring votes yet to report.
2:17pm Ossoff’s win probability up to 76%, while Warnock is at 90%.
2:07pm The Needle has Ossoff’s win probability up to 73%, while Warnock is at 87%. If Ossoff wins, Republicans will be cursing the Libertarian who got 2.3% in November, denying Perdue an outright win.
1:55pm There’s still lots more votes left in Atlanta, which is why the Needle has projected final margins of Ossoff by 1.0% and Warnock by 1.7%, even though both Republicans are currently ahead in the raw vote count. Ossoff’s win probability up to 70%.
1:44pm Wasserman CALLS the Senate by-election for Warnock (D).
1:40pm With 78% in, it’s Loeffler by 0.6% and Perdue by 1.3%. But the projected margins are Warnock by 1.7% and Ossoff by 1.0%.
1:28pm With 69% counted, both Republicans have taken the lead, Perdue by 1.1% and Loeffler by 0.35%. However, there’s lots more votes left in the Dem-heavy Atlanta area, and the projected margins are Warnock by 1.6% and Ossoff by 0.9%.
1:09pm Just had lunch, and there’s been a big narrowing in the Dem leads. With 63% in, it’s Warnock by 0.6% and Ossoff by just 0.04%. However, the Needle is more confident in both Dems, with Warnock projected to win by 1.4% (68% chance) and Ossoff by 0.7% (60% chance).
12:42pm With 49% in, it’s Warnock by 8 and Ossoff by 7. The Needle has Warnock by 1.2% and Ossoff by 0.7%, with both Dems at around 60% win probability. There’s still a lot of election day vote to come.
12:25pm With 42% reporting, Warnock leads by 11 and Ossoff by 10. The Needle has both races tilting Dem, with Warnock up 1.2% and Ossoff up 0.8%.
12:22pm Wasserman has a good result for both Democrats from Washington county.
12:17pm Wasserman says that many very rural, very Republican counties are below 90% of November turnout. We already know that DeKalb will be over 90% of November levels.
12:11pm With 29% in, it’s Warnock by 4 and Ossoff by 3. Warnock has a 60% chance to win, Ossoff 57%.
11:56am Both Democrats up by 12 with 18% in, and both leading on the Needle by 0.5-1.0%. Both races now classes as Tilting Democrat, from Flip a Coin.
11:52am Dave Wasserman tweets that Republicans trail Trump’s numbers by a point or two in Lanier county with only 86% of November turnout.
11:45am Ossoff now up by more than Warnock (6 vs 3) with 11% in. The Needle has both Dems ahead by under 1%.
11:37am With 9% reporting, it’s Warnock by 14 and Ossoff by 12. The Needle still has both Democrats barely ahead.
11:27am Democratic counties are reporting far earlier than in November. It’s currently Warnock by 30 and Ossoff by 27, but the Needle has both Democrats barely ahead.
11am New York Times results available here, with a Needle for both races.
10:30am Looks like good turnout news for Democrats: DeKalb county (83% Biden) is at 90% of November turnout levels with an hour until polls close.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
After the November election, Republicans had a 50-48 lead over Democrats in the Senate. The final two seats, both in Georgia, went to runoffs that will be decided today. If Democrats win both of these contests, they will tie Republicans at 50-50 in the Senate, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would cast the tie breaking vote.
The FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate has both Democrats moving into slight leads, with Jon Ossoff (D) leading David Perdue (R) by 1.8% and Raphael Warnock (D) leading Kelly Loeffler (R) by 2.1%. Ossoff has gained 0.9% and Warnock 0.3% since Saturday’s article.
Polls in Georgia close at 11am AEDT. In November, the counting was slow in Georgia, with initial results strong for Republicans owing to a rural bias. The suburbs around Atlanta did not start reporting until late on election night.
Concerning tomorrow’s Congressional certification of the Electoral College, all I have to add to Saturday’s article is that at least 12 Republican senators will join Josh Hawley in objecting to the results.
On Sunday, Democrat Nancy Pelosi was re-elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives, winning 216 votes to 209 for Republican Kevin McCarthy. There were two votes for other candidates. Pelosi needed a majority of all candidate votes. As there were 427 such votes, she needed 214, so exceeded the required majority by two.
From 538
“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.”
It looks like the Republican turnout is down. Some Georgian Republican commentators are blaming Trump’s criticism of the Georgia count for discouraging Republican turnout. So it is not so much a swing to the Democrats as a fall in the Republican vote.
ABC has Ossoff- Perdue 50-50
and
Warnock-Loeffler 51-49
Watching the figures developing on CNN, looks like the Democrat lead is narrowing quickly.
Down to a 50-50 split on the back of the most conservative county – Cherokee- reporting. Democrat leads are 10,000and 30,000 votes respectively. But only 10% of Atlanta county has reported and the Dems are a further 2% above what Biden achieved there in November. Still looking positive.
And NYT needle still marginally favouring the Democrats- these Republican favouring returns are as expected
max @ #55 Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 – 10:10 am
What max said.
Warnock doing well in Fulton county.
Trump won in 2016 Biden in 2020
Nate Silver – always the voice of caution:
It’s hard to know whether the narrative on Twitter and other places has gotten overexuberant for the Democrats. It really does seem to be pretty hard to find favorable data points for the GOP so far, but with this patchwork of Election Day votes, early votes and so on, coming in from very different parts of the state, it can also be easy to cherry-pick evidence. And while Democrats are beating their marks, they they’re mostly doing so by narrow margins.
Perdue now 787 votes ahead. However, I haven’t seen a single report that has the Republican vote ahead of where it was in November on a county by county basis.
Is now a good time to look back at the PB’s 2020 senate election predictions?
There are still Democratic strongholds like Warnock’s hometown of Savannah to come in.
Andrew – there are some according to a 538 post I just saw, but they are at least balanced out by counties where the GOP is underperforming relative to Nov 3
And while Perdue is now some thousands of votes ahead in the current count the NYT needle is still drifting marginally to the Dems
I read that some counties have already counted their Early Votes and some haven’t.
The other Nate, for a bit of a pick-me-up:
1 minute ago
Nate Cohn
The race now leans toward the Democrats. There’s a long way to go and it’s close, but they have done better than they need across all vote methods and in all regions.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/05/us/georgia-elections#i-need-their-votes-biden-says-of-georgias-democratic-senate-candidates
Nate Cohn has just posted the race is leaning Democrat.
Time for both GOP candidates to demand a stop to the count as they are both ahead on the current tally. The NYT prediction of Democrat wins has not changed though
With only 10% of Atlanta reporting I’d rather be in the democrats seat than the republicans at this stage of the count. Remember Biden wasn’t ahead until right at the end of the count back in November. While the order of counting seems different there are some very big democrat fish still to land.
Well we are certainly seeing a red wave, but it isn’t stressing the needles it seems.
I still like the NYT needle!!
If the needle projection holds (currently +1.7 to Warnock and +1.0 to Ossoff) , then both races are well outside the 0.25 threshold for a recount. Will Loeffler still front up at the Congressional sittings in Washington tomorrow?
From the NYT…..
“Republicans have taken a narrow lead in the tabulated vote, but the Democrats are clear favorites in both races for Senate. The overwhelming majority of remaining votes are in the Atlanta metro area, and while the race remains competitive, there’s no indication that the Republicans are poised to run more strongly than expected there.”…….
Go Dems. !
@Redistrict tweets
Here’s the story right now:
1. Black turnout looks, frankly, phenomenal.
2. Perdue/Loeffler are approaching Trump %s of the vote in a lot of deep red rural counties, but turnout there isn’t anything special.
3. It’s getting harder to see a path for either R, but esp. Loeffler.
Next tweet
I’ve seen enough. Raphael Warnock (D) defeats Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) in GA’s special Senate runoff. #GASEN
Raphael Warnock is exactly the sort of person who needs to be in the American Senate!
Good point:
1 minute ago
Jim Rutenberg
Question hanging over the night: If Perdue and Loeffler lose, how much sway will Trump hold with congressional Republicans tomorrow as he pushes them to object to certification of his loss?
Nathaniel Rakich on outstanding votes:
Per those same rough calculations, there are about 685,000 votes outstanding in blue counties and 350,000 votes outstanding in red counties. (Of course, not every vote in a blue county will be for Democrats and not every vote in a red county will be for Republicans.)
Almost all remaining votes to count are either early votes and/or votes from Atlanta area (both heavily democrat). This is high tide for the Republican vote.
Nate Silver speaking on ABC just said betting markets were now favouring Warnock (95%) and Ossoff (85%) to win.
@People4Bernie tweets
CHAIRMAN SANDERS LET’S GOOOOO
@Nate_Cohn tweets
The biggest dump of remaining Democratic vote is the ~170k DeKalb County in-person early vote, which we expect to break for Ossoff by an 85-15 margin
There is a good explanation of the Georgia vote by 538 here:
https://youtu.be/ieCDW47ugro
Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said.
Mr. Pence’s message, delivered during his weekly lunch with the president, came hours after Mr. Trump further turned up the public pressure on the vice president to do his bidding when Congress convenes Wednesday in a joint session to ratify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College win.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/us/politics/pence-trump-election-results.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
Twitter has put a warning on that Dave Wasserman tweet calling the race for Warnock.
If Warnock and Ossoff both win, then it’s my understanding that they toss a coin to decide who is the Senior vs Junior senator from Georgia. No joke.
guytaur @ #82 Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 – 11:04 am
That is pathetic.
Good to see Ossoff firming.
Stay on target!
Nathaniel Rakich just now:
With 82 percent of the expected vote reporting, Loeffler’s lead is up to 1.5 points and Perdue’s is up to 2 points. But The New York Times’s needle is more confident than ever in a Warnock and Ossoff win. That’s because the Republican-leaning votes that have come in haven’t changed the fact that a ton of votes remain to be counted in dark-blue Atlanta.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/almost-australian-the-georgia-run-off-candidate-with-roots-down-under-20210106-p56s01.html
“ Per those same rough calculations, there are about 685,000 votes outstanding in blue counties and 350,000 votes outstanding in red counties. (Of course, not every vote in a blue county will be for Democrats and not every vote in a red county will be for Republicans.)”
Just heard some more in depth analysis of what is outstanding live on ABC. As at 10pm Atlanta time all that is left outstanding is early votes (state wide) and the big urban counties (also mainly early voting). Election officials expect to realise the first big dumps of early counting results from Atlanta at around 11 to 11:30pm – so in about an hour. Once that happens I expect the current Republican leads to disappear nearly straight away and the democrats to pull further and further away with late counting. The election officials will go until 2am, if necessary, but will be back early tomorrow morning to do a mop up count (excluding mail ins and ballots were signatures on the envelopes have to be corrected) by about 10am local time – so in about 12 hours.
I’m off to do some exercise. I hope when I finish it will be all over bar the shouting (and the tweeting. Always the tweeting).
WeWantPaul @ #84 Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 – 1:40 pm
The warning is pretty mild.
Sec of state Raffensperger has just advised the DeKalb County early votes will be tabulated within 30 minutes (likely +100,000 to vote margins for each Democrat).
The Twitter Warning;
“Multiple sources may not have called the race when this was Tweeted”
It looks like the runoffs may turn on DeKalb county, which has 171,000 early votes, and where the split is normally 80/20 to the Dems.
Trump will go crazy when the early votes are counted!
From Sarah Frostenson on 538. Nathaniel Rakich said that De Kalb is expected to be updated by 11 PM ,or 3 PM AEST, and that it could be decisive:
—————————-
As we wait for more votes to trickle in — still unsure on timing here and whether we’ll get calls tonight — here’s an important county to keep an eye on: DeKalb. Only 37 percent of the expected vote is in, and according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, it has one of the biggest tranches of early votes not yet counted.
But as Adam Kelsey of ABC News pointed out, in November, DeKalb went for Biden by 67 points, so if that ticks upward for the Democratic candidates this time (assuming their current margins hold), it could push Ossoff and Warnock into leads statewide.
As we wait for more votes to trickle in — still unsure on timing here and whether we’ll get calls tonight — here’s an important county to keep an eye on: DeKalb. Only 37 percent of the expected vote is in, and according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, it has one of the biggest tranches of early votes not yet counted.
But as Adam Kelsey of ABC News pointed out, in November, DeKalb went for Biden by 67 points, so if that ticks upward for the Democratic candidates this time (assuming their current margins hold), it could push Ossoff and Warnock into leads statewide.
“With 82 percent of the expected vote reporting, Loeffler’s lead is up to 1.5 points and Perdue’s is up to 2 points. But The New York Times’s needle is more confident than ever in a Warnock and Ossoff win.”
You can’t help thinking that this will just be perfect fuel for the conspiracy theories.
“They started telling us we were going to lose – just when we were winning!”
guytaur says:
Wednesday, January 6, 2021 at 2:04 pm
Twitter has put a warning on that Dave Wasserman tweet calling the race for Warnock.
————
LOL
Simon Katich @ #91 Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 – 11:25 am
Oh that is reasonable then.
@MollyJongFast tweets
Maybe being shitty and racist to the pastor of Martin Luther King‘s church was a mistake?
Nate Silver- everyone gets to do it all again in 2 years:
One small silver lining for the GOP is that if Warnock wins, he’ll have to defend his seat again in 2022.
Now is the time for Perdue & Loeffler to come out and claim victory and then get more and more apoplectic as additional votes swing things against them.
Isn’t that how elections should work? Claim victory when you’re ahead and then throw a tantrum when it goes against you.
Of course all Trump will do if it does now go against Perdue & Loeffler is point at Georgia and claim the system is rigged and the outcome is proof.