Raphael Warnock (D) ousted appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) in a special election runoff.

Thank you for spending your evening with us.

Well, we've been going at this for more than five hours now -- if you've been with us the whole time, you deserve a medal.

According to the Georgia Secretary of State's office, 156 of 159 counties have reported complete returns. And 98.11% of precincts have reported. We're not expecting a call on the races anytime soon, so we're going to call it a night.

Here's where things stand at the moment, but keep in mind the three counties that have not reported complete returns (Fulton, DeKalb, Hancock) are all strongly Democratic.

David Perdue (R) 50.02% Jon Ossoff (D) 49.98%

Raphael Warnock (D) 50.40% Kelly Loeffler (R) 49.60%

In a battle of public speaking, it's hard to match the skills of the reverend from Ebenezer Baptist Church

Loeffler told a crowd in Atlanta just now that she still has a path to victory: “We’re going to win this election.”

Warnock's opponent, Kelly Loeffler, is trying to preempt his speech by making some brief remarks right now.

Warnock is about to give the speech of his life. He's on the cusp of making history

We're spinning our wheels here for a couple minutes, folks, because Raphael Warnock is set to speak in about 10 minutes

Perdue's enemy was time and exposure

One of McConnell's advisers weighs in: 

If Perdue hangs on (he's ahead by fewer than 1,900 votes), it's a testament to his refusal to campaign. He avoided reporters on the campaign trail. He skipped a debate.

This fixation with making a call is so much a product of 24-hour news and social media. Chill out people. Sure, Warnock is ahead. But what's the rush?

Social media pressure building to issue a call in the Loeffler-Warnock race. Warnock is up 35,031.

Given that we have nearly 4.4 million votes counted, I'd argue we have a pretty good idea of where things stand now: Both races are extremely close, though Democrats are in better shape in the special election.

GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger on CNN predicts that we'll have a "better idea" of where things stand by noon tomorrow.

It's all about turnout, Steven

Boom

The results with this level of Election Day turnout just proves the old political axiom: Nobody knows anything.

Yep

Yeah. But those other factors, Black voter turnout and white suburban support, might have been too much ....

I spoke with some Republicans Zach Marc who said 900k was a decent position, and the higher it went above 1 million the better they felt

Republicans were pretty sure they would win if total turnout started hitting 900k, but that might not hold true. Dems poured it on. Still, lots of votes and unknowns

That's astonishing

Yes, lol Zach, I saw when i did the math

Oh, and an answer for you Marc: Roughly 1.2 million people voted today, Sterling said. (He gave a more exact number, but I missed it.) That's more than the secretary of state's office was estimating

So with Perdue's lead down to just 384, and with more votes from Democratic counties, Ossoff should pull ahead soon and Warnock's lead will grow

You thought the presidential race in Georgia was close? Here's the latest from the Georgia Secretary of State's office.

With 96.86% of precincts reporting, David Perdue leads Jon Ossoff by 384 votes.

Yup. 384 votes. Out of roughly 4.3 million votes cast.

And Sterling brings up the dreaded R word ... recount! He says these are close races, something could ultimately fall in that .5 percent threshold, in which the losing candidate can request a recount

"Fulton and DeKalb are going to have big swaths of votes" that came in today, Sterling said. That is the mail ballots that were received today before close of polls.

Gabriel Sterling is up with another live press conference: 27,600 advance votes yet to come in, across the state. 19,000 from DeKalb County, and about 7,000 from Coffee County. (Advance vote is in-person early voting.)

Well, they're simply estimations of how many votes have been cast in the races. Ours come from The Associated Press. CNN's (plus ABC, CBS and NBC) come from Edison Research, a firm that conducts exit polls and counts the vote for those networks.

It all adds up to this: Almost all the votes are in. And both of these races — especially the Ossoff/Perdue race — are extremely close.

So as we near midnight — and, no, I'm not making any "midnight train" references, James — worth noting where we are: More than 4.2 million votes have been tabulated. If you're looking at the results on our site, you might see something that says "95% of expected vote in." If you're watching CNN, for example, it says "96% estimated vote" on the screen. What does it all mean?

(That general order makes sense, the last ballots processed are often the mail ballots that arrive on Election Day.)

Contra local media, Gabe Sterling says Chatham didn't stop: 

There are only 111 fewer votes in the Perdue-Ossoff race than the Loeffler-Warnock race. So it turns out there are voters who went with Perdue and Warnock

Right now, Perdue is up 14k statewide over Ossoff and Loeffler is down 20k against Warnock. A remarkable split-ticket image that's emerging.

So Chatham County allegedly releasing votes tonight after it was reported that folks were going home. At this point, I can write the conspiracy theories that will populate social media tomorrow.

But good point Charlie: I'm not predicting a win.

I meant in the respect of being a razor-thin-margins state

Marc But is it? I wonder if the ATL suburbs will deliver the same Dem margins in a post-Trump era.

Those ballots in Chatham may be what we are ultimately waiting for, but that ain't coming 'till tomorrow

Current margin of Perdue's lead over Ossoff is about 3,100 votes

Welcome to being a true swing state, Georgia [Editing this: I meant a truly purple battleground state with tight election margins and late night vote-counting that bleed into morning]

Some votes from DeKalb County, outside Atlanta, just landed, moving Raphael Warnock back into the lead in the special election. David Perdue is still very narrowly ahead of Jon Ossoff in the regular election.

Clayton County, once represented by the late Rep. John Lewis, really delivered for Warnock and Ossoff tonight. Both won roughly 88% there -- outperforming Biden -- amid heavy turnout for a runoff.

So if there are 171k early votes left to be tallied in DeKalb and if Ossoff and Perdue get the same support rates as they did in November, Perdue's 113k lead would be cut down to 1,300 but Loeffler would wind up losing by 51k. Again, DeKalb isn't the only county. But it's the big one

We have the Atlanta metro area with ballots out yet, couple small counties, and the aforementioned Chatham, home of Savannah

Also according to data on the secretary of state's website: 147 of 159 counties are fully reported

If it comes down to Savannah, we ain't getting calls tonight: 

And there's nothing nefarious about the fact that counties with more voters take longer to count votes.

I don't think anyone will be surprised by this tweet from the president. It's important to note that this 'big voter dump' he's talking about is a figment of his imagination. Anyone who is familiar with how elections are run, or has covered elections, recognizes that populous cities or counties often drop big tranches of votes at various points in the evening. And since many of the tranches still to come are from Democratic-oriented counties, they will likely narrow the race or the lead will change hands.

And, it goes without saying, but the president is lying about the a vote dump

While we're talking about election administrators: I think the folks in Georgia really do deserve an attaboy for this election. These folks have been running basically nonstop since the summer. It hasn't been easy for them but I have seen no (legitimate) systemic complaints about the administration of the runoff

Here we go. 

I am very excited for the next NASS conference, Charlie

I'll bet he's treated like a rock star at the next election administrators convention. Groupies, autograph lines, the tortoise shell glasses replaced with aviators, the whole deal.

If he were a GIF, Sterling would be Burning Elmo

Speaking of Gabriel Sterling, he's been active tonight. This story is from our hard-working and talented colleague Matthew https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/05/gabriel-sterling-blames-trump-455279

So while we wait on DeKalb, we still have to wonder how much of the remaining pie it represents. More than 3.75m ballots have been cast. If there's somehow presidential total turnout, which I doubt, that would mean there's about 1.24m votes left. So that's probably the ceiling. For purposes of scale: There are as many as 226k votes left in DeKalb to be tallied

DeKalb is coming "soon," per our now familiar friend: 

Thanks for asking Zach! Some light reading for anyone who has time to kill waiting for more returns.

Did someone write about that recently, James? Sounds like a good story idea

It would be quite something to see Ossoff net a big boost in DeKalb that could potentially help lift him. Part of that county sits in GA-06, where he ran in 2017. True bookends to elections in the Trump presidency, potentially

Consider: Perdue is up by about 100k votes. But if DeKalb comes in at the amount that's left and if the candidates get the same rates of support as they did in November, it would give Ossoff 145k votes. So he could wind up being up by 45k. However: THERE ARE OTHER COUNTIES. So DeKalb aint the whole ballgame. But it's a lot of it

A random observation: Right now, Bubba McDonald, the incumbent Republican in a runoff tonight for a public service commission seat, is running ahead of both Loeffler and Perdue in terms of raw vote, despite the fact there's roughly 40,000 less votes cast in his race

Not making a prediction here, but top Democratic insiders in Georgia and Washington are looking at the outstanding votes in DeKalb County and feeling very bullish about the prospects of a 50-50 Senate.

For the record, DeKalb delivered big for Dems in November -- Biden won by a landslide, 83-16. His winning margin there was roughly 250,000 votes.

And by well over 100,000 ... I mean 171,000. It is a lot of votes

Yeah, Charlie. I believe the biggest bucket that's still out there is the in-person early vote from DeKalb county, which is the burbs of Atlanta. They've only reported a few hundred "advanced voting" votes ... that is, people who voted early in-person. That's going to be well over 100,000 votes that'll break decisively for Democrats

Time for a check in. The polls have been closed for more than three hours. The state reports that 128 of 159 counties have reported complete returns. But we're still waiting on numbers from some key counties, right?

What's a check?

We're all still writing "2020" on our checks and angry press releases.

he's just like us

Worth noting that the statement from Trump is dated "January 5, 2020"

At his rally in Dalton last night, President Trump was very transparently trying to make these runoffs a referendum on his push for Republicans to object to the certification of the election.

Ah, yes, THAT is happening tomorrow. It'll be a real test of the GOP's commitment to small d democracy ... and I wonder how many senators are watching tonight's results trickle in

Just think -- we have the Electoral College drama ahead of us tomorrow. While his party is engaged in nail-biting over the fate of its Senate majority, President Trump just released the following statement.

“The New York Times report regarding comments Vice President Pence supposedly made to me today is fake news. He never said that. The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.

“The November 3rd election was corrupt in contested states, and in particular it was not in accordance with the Constitution in that they made large scale changes to election rules and regulations as dictated by local judges and politicians, not by state legislators. This means that it was illegal.

“Our Vice President has several options under the U.S. Constitution. He can decertify the results or send them back to the states for change and certification. He can also decertify the illegal and corrupt results and send them to the House of Representatives for the one vote for one state tabulation.“

 

And the turnout in Dem-heavy DeKalb exceeded Election Day totals

But lots of DeKalb County is out

With 3.4m votes in, it stands to reason that almost 70% of the vote is in. The Republicans are up but barely so.

And Texas is quite a bit bigger!

Useless trivia fact of the evening -- only one state (Texas) has more counties than Georgia.

So everyone's gotta report up, which takes some time. Despite what the president believes, there's quite a degree of balkanization on election night there

No, I do not. There's 159 counties in Georgia

Hey Zach: Do you think it's odd that they have no clue what Election Day turnout is

It's awfully early to be making calls.

Many smaller, Republican-oriented counties are already accounted for. Here are a few key Democratic counties outside the Atlanta area to keep an eye on as the night goes on: Chatham County (Savannah) Muscogee County (Columbus) Clarke County (Athens) Bibb County (Macon)

Wow. Wasserman making a call

It looks like a healthy number (more than this time in November) are counted. That's one reason why the races are so close, as compared to November, when Trump and Perdue had bigger leads at this point than Perdue and Loeffler do now.

Steven where are things with absentee/mail-in ballots?

So far, that see-sawing is mostly in Republicans' direction — Perdue and Loeffler currently lead in the vote count now. But Metro Atlanta, as we've said a few times now, looms quite large. Still want to see more Election Day votes there before we have an idea of these very close races tilting one way or the other.

"It could be a see-saw for the rest of the evening" as more votes come in, Sterling said. So get comfy, folks!

Sterling said we are approaching 3 million votes counted in the state -- but he doesn't have an estimate for how many people voted today quite yet. There's "big tranches of votes" for Democrats still out, and a lot of "little tranches" around the state. "It is going to be a long night," Sterling said. He also said that the likely biggest pot of vote still out is the DeKalb County in-person early vote.

If you've just tuned in to our live chat, it's looking like we've got two barnburner Senate races tonight.

With 76% of the expected vote in, Republican David Perdue leads Democrat Jon Ossoff, 50.7% to 49.3%.

And with 78% of the expected vote in, Republican Kelly Loeffler leads Democrat Raphael Warnock, 50.3% to 49.7%.

Expect these numbers to seesaw. There are still a lot of metro Atlanta area votes to be counted.

We're getting a press conference right now from Gabriel Sterling, one of the top election officials in the state. I'll keep y'all posted if he says anything interesting, but he's starting off the conference listing the counties that have totally completed their counts (good job to them!), so it strikes me as routine

So, if you're looking for a consistent pattern ... don't! That's why some counties are already entirely reported, and some show "zero precincts reported" despite having results in. Precincts reported refers to election day, in-person votes

I'll grab the second one: Counties all operate on their own schedules! There's 159 counties in Georgia, each of which will be reporting three buckets of votes: In-person on Election Day, early in-person and mail ballots. Some of the smaller counties that have already reported all of their results have done that at once. And the order, early in-person or mail first, varies county to county, which in-person Election Day comes in as they have it

I'm going to pose a two questions a reader on Twitter DM'd me (hi, Ian! Thanks for reading!), if anyone wants to take a crack at it: -- Is there a reason to expect the numbers for the two races won't be near-identical? What will substantial variations tell us? -- Plus, do they count the same ways at the same time across the state?

Looking at some of those smaller, strongly GOP north Georgia counties, there are signs of Perdue/Loeffler overperformance

Totally, James Scott. Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia voting systems manager, was just on CNN and said he expects it to go back and forth all night as different counties "nickel-and-dime" each other with their margins.

Per Zach's req for Election Day numbers from metro Atlanta -- I took a look at Fulton County precincts that are reporting E-Day totals and compared them back to those precincts in November. The Democratic Senate candidates are running margins about 2 points better than Biden's over Trump two months ago, when he narrowly won the state. So that's a good sign for Ossoff and Warnock, though obviously we're still talking about very close margins. A lot still depends on turnout variations here and there which is tougher to get into, and remember Perdue and Loeffler are overperforming in some places too. But for Democrats to be outperforming Biden in the heart of their territory is a good sign for them.

The presidential race in November had just under 5m votes (the Senate races were a little lower than that). So we're more than halfway through with the count and it's tiiiiight

Split result? So we're at 2.8m votes in and Perdue just cleared 50% and took a marginal lead over Ossoff but Loeffler still trails Warnock, who's just over 50% as well.

To put a more blunt point on what Scott just said: don't read too much into which candidate is leading at which moment. It is likely to swing back and forth as votes come in from different areas, and it could seesaw throughout the night

My kingdom for any sort of metro Atlanta election day voting before I answer that question, Charlie. Some precincts are reporting in Fulton now ... but that really holds the key to all of it.

The vote counts in the Senate runoffs have narrowed considerably as more Election Day votes are tallied. Perdue and Loeffler will continue to gain as they work through those, but the pattern in November had more late-arriving mail counted later, so... this thing is going to swing around. It seems very close. Every indication is that the two parties are performing fairly close to what they did in November, which is to be expected

Ok. Polls have been closed for a little over 2 hours. What do we know at this point?

You're off by 10 percentage points. George W. Bush defeated Al Gore 64-32 in Gwinnett. Twenty years later, Biden carried Gwinnett 58-40. That's quite a transformation.

For those readers who are curious, POLITICO is the best media league softball team. Don't fact check me on that

In February, I got a new glove after years of abusing my high school baseball glove. Even started breaking it in... Sad.

Remember softball? Sigh.

But in light of that, I'll do Gore losing Gwinnett by 22 percent, my POLITICO softball jersey number

Closest without going over! I would be the person on that show who only guesses $1, hoping everyone else screwed up

Zach I'm afraid I'm not familiar with those rules.

Are these Price is Right rules Charlie? Because I am very militant about my Price is Right strategy

You got those jeopardy test-taking skills

Oh thats good James

Charlie My guess: Gore lost Gwinnett by 18 points

Zach Interesting point, and something we saw play out in 2018 at the House level. As Elena can attest, we saw a lot more Democrats of color run and run well in heavily white districts than before, shattering some preconceptions

fine. I'll try

5 points

Not even trying Charlie

Here's a trivia question for my fellow chatters and political geeks.

I'll buy lunch (in a few years, when we return to the office) for anyone who can guess Al Gore's percentage in Gwinnett County. As a point of reference, Biden crushed Trump there by 18 points in November.

Anyone caught cheating will have their expense accounts scrutinized to the fullest extent.

For sure, Zach

Even if Warnock doesn't win ... I think it certainly changes how Democrats recruit candidates. Instead of running ye 'ole generic John Edwards-esque white dude in Southern states

So if he wins tonight, Raphael Warnock will be the first Black Democrat elected from the South (Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina was elected in 2014 after his previous appointment). Warnock would be the seventh African-American ever elected to the United States senate

Election nights on Slack, instead of the newsroom, just aren't the same!

I miss hearing you hectoring people on the phone, Zach.

Zach Not sure

A silent L, Steven, but I only know that because I was hectored by someone in Georgia recently on a phone call for saying it incorrectly

From some smaller counties, Zach. But not from Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett or more Dem-heavy DeKalb (which I'm going to make you pronounce as a test).

James & Andrew Atlanta these days reminds me of LA in that you have to plan your life around the traffic.

Still no runoff day votes in in the metro Atlanta area though, right Charlie?

I think Warnock would be the first popularly elected Black Democratic senator from the South, the second ever from the region. Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican, was elected after his appointment 

Steven A few of those metro Atlanta counties have over 80% of estimated votes reported (Rockdale/Clayton/Douglas). Ossoff is several points ahead of his Election Day pace in each of them; Warnock is running several points ahead of Biden's pace.

Steven Perdue has made that precise point repeatedly on the campaign trail. At two events I was at last week, he said in any other state he would have won already (which is not quite correct, a few others have runoffs) and said 52.5% of the electorate rejected Ossoff in November

Jumping off that Marc Steven -- I was looking up the numbers earlier today. There have been 1,991 senators in history according to congressional historians. Just 10 of them have been Black. Warnock, if he wins, would be the 11th in 232 years.

I want to see how fast Charlie can type "Wyche Fowler" or "Paul Coverdell."

Teresa It took me 5.5 hours to get from Atlanta to Savannah over the weekend. Not ideal!

David Perdue "beat" Jon Ossoff in November, 49.7-47.9%.

Speaking of Jim Crow relics, Marc, let's remember why we're here in the first place: Georgia's runoff system.

I'm still fascinated that Georgia has a county named Jeff Davis, in honor of the only president of the Confederacy. And, yes, the Democrats are losing the county and the only Black candidate is getting the fewest votes

Also Atlanta drivers are... I will say... confident

Having spent ~35% of the last week in a rental car

Teresa Can confirm traffic is bad!

Traffic is horrible in Atlanta--like, really, the pits. But you can live a lot larger there than in NYC.

oh god, me writing "young internet creators" makes me seem old

I read a really interesting story in a competing outlet about how young internet creators were headed to Atlanta too, Teresa. Lots of folks going there

And as we know, voters of color vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

And as Maya reported in her excellent story about Georgia and the New South, the immigrant population jumped 84 percent between 2010 and 2018>. Georgia is on track to be majority-minority by 2030. <https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/05/georgia-senate-old-new-south-442423

Republicans going into today were pegging 1 million Election Day turnout as a mark where they would feel pretty solid about their chances of winning

Right. DeKalb had higher turnout today than Nov. 3

I know that sounds high, Marc. But a couple of Metro Atlanta counties have said more people showed up to vote today than on Nov. 3 (even as they haven't counted their votes yet).

Elena & Maya, I was reading today that the biggest influx of outsiders to the Atlanta are New Yorkers. And Atlanta has become Hollywood South--there are movie studios there, thanks to generous Georgia tax credits. And the music industry is big there, too.

A 1 million turnout would be what it was in November

I haven't seen a good comprehensive statewide estimate, Marc, but I'd probably ballpark it around a million or so folks voting in person on election day

Also, who says a Trump won't be on the ballot? Already, one member of the family (by marriage) is considering running for Senate in your home state!

Steven Especially if Democrats manage to (somehow) retake the Senate. They'll be the party in power, and that's not usually a great motivator in a midterm.

Hey, James & Zach: what's the best estimate of total turnout on Election Day?

Elena We went from the lowest-turnout midterm ever in 2014, to the highest-turnout midterm ever in 2018. This can see-saw really quickly, and I wouldn't assume Democratic voters are going to stay this activated (or anywhere close) 22 months from now either.

Especially in the South Elena, as more immigrants and young people move away from big northern cities

That's fascinating, Zach. Perdue won the county by 2 points in November. Biden won it by 1. If it flips, it could be an indicator of how Trump was a drag on Perdue

To Steven's point and all the caveats that it's still early in the night and we need to wait until what ED turnout says ... But I do wonder, if these Republican turnout problems hold, what that will mean for 2022? If Trump is not on the ballot, can Republicans not bank on those surges in the rural areas? I think we're going to keep, endlessly, be asking the question: What does the electorate look like?

Biden won Washington in November, though

Would you look at that: There is a county that flipped from Perdue to Ossoff, going from November to now: Washington County, a bit east of Macon

which would be approximately the halfway point

We are quickly approaching the 2 million vote mark

So far, we have essentially none of the Election Day vote counted in Metro Atlanta yet, including the populous suburban counties were Republicans were once dominant but have ceded massive ground over the past decade. It's hard to draw any conclusions without that information — folks I talked to before today said they were watching that region above all others tonight.

Returning to Valdosta's Lowndes County...97% of estimated votes are now reported. And the numbers look better for Perdue. He's now up 56-44; in November he won there 56-42.

I almost included it in the preview we published this morning.

He's been waiting all day

I love when Steven uses words like co-terminous.

You abuse is fuel Charlie

Just kidding. That was a revealing story -- if these Columbus numbers hold, it suggests all those Dem efforts were successful.

You are corrected about Columbus being a unified city-county govt Steven

We might have about half the expected vote in Columbus (the city and county are co-terminus, I believe), but we have zero Election Day precincts. So I don't think those numbers will hold. But nearby, red-leaning counties that have counted their E-day votes generally show Dems holding their own in SW Georgia (which seems to be the trend so far, though it's early).

You edited the story, Charlie. This is your fault

One of the interesting aspects of the Columbus market was just how much both sides invested in ground game there. A liberal outfit from Colorado rented a house in town for door-knockers to live

Surely there's a button to mute Marc, right?

Shameless plug of my Columbus story, Charlie https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/17/georgia-senate-race-447466

On Nov. 3, Biden won 61 percent in Muscogee County and Ossoff won 60 percent -- that's Columbus, the third-largest city in the state. At the moment, with 48% of estimated votes reporting, both Warnock and Ossoff are at 74% in Muscogee County.

Is there a face-in-hands emoji on here, Zach

Our friend Eric Geller is not with us right now, but he'd tell you all the importance of a paper backup

It asks "is it true that voting machines 'stopped working' earlier in Georgia today?" It is not true, at least on any significant basis There was one county that had some problems -- Columbia County -- but those were both resolved in a timely fashion, and voters were able to vote on a paper ballot in the interim

As the night goes on, there's increasing worry that conservative North Georgia is underperforming.

Speaking of people spreading conspiracy theories ... just got a fundraising text from the president with a conspiracy theory in it!

I wonder Charlie if it’s a leading indicator of the underlying belief by many conservatives that they’ll lose this election. 

Marc I'm afraid that's going to be a part of our electoral system for the foreseeable future -- unsubstantiated fraud claims, candidates refusing to concede, etc.

I regret to inform everyone that some of the right wing traffickers of misinformation on Twitter are laying the groundwork for more complaints of widespread election fraud, which will largely be baseless if they happen to resemble their claims from November

With 73% reporting in Lowndes County, Perdue is up 51-49. That's well behind his Nov. 3 pace in the South GA county (he won 56-42). Loeffler is also leading 51-49. Keep in mind that's home to Valdosta, where Trump held his Dec. 5 rally.

So true...

Andrew And in between, we've all lived at least five lifetimes.

We are looking at a lot of early-counted mail right now, which is partially why the Democratic leads are large at the moment -- or at least large compared to the close to 50-50 baseline from November. There are 2,656 precincts in Georgia and just 106 have reported complete counts according to the secretary of state's office

Ossoff’s races have bookended the Trump presidency! Elena 

Topical joke, folks! Don't we love it

I have a feeling these races won't be the blowout that the Heisman was this year

James Jon Ossoff's basically been running for office for three years straight in Atlanta.

So with a quarterish of the vote in, Democrats lead by 9 points

Agreed Charlie. It helps that he's an Atlanta native!

Charlie And he had the benefit of huge name recognition there thanks to the House race in '17. His campaign knew that too. He spent a lot of time in these runoffs outside Atlanta trying to improve his image/perception all around the state

Maya Stylistically, Ossoff seems more suited to metro Atlanta than Valdosta

Over a million votes in and reported, now ... so we're a quarter(ish) of the way there

During the November elections, Perdue escaped being defined. I wonder if the same happened during the runoff

Perdue's big enemy was the clock. He just played it out.

There's also the obvious point: Republicans have a Black voter problem.

Another good point, Elena

Marc Perdue also didn't have to run in a vicious primary. That definitely helps, too!

Maya I'm curious to see how cities outside Atlanta do, too.

Yeah. Good point Maya. I think David Perdue’s strength with Georgia voters is also sometimes under-appreciated. From his name to his demeanor, Perdue is very Georgia

I'm looking at how he performs with Black voters in places like Savannah, Columbus, even Valdosta to prove whether it's really an issue.

I'm not sure if it's so much a problem as it is his lesser-known status compared to Raphael Warnock Marc. The Ossoff campaign has also made clear his ties to giants in Georgia's civil rights and Black communities like John Lewis and Hank Johnson, who he worked for in college.

No ads on netflix

Zach: she's very into Netflix!

Hey, Elena, Maya & James: Republicans were saying Ossoff had a black voter problem. What have you heard about that

I hope your mother canceled her TV subscription Teresa!

My mother, who's a political junkie from way back, and has worked on various campaigns in Georgia, just told me that this election has been particularly nasty and divivise with more "ugly jabs." And she says the money spent on the campaigns is unreal.

Teresa Smart point. I often think of Cobb County as the Southern equivalent of California's Orange County -- in other words, one of the cornerstone counties of the modern Republican Party. And Orange County has moved in the same direction as Cobb, for many of the same reasons.

I'm not sure about Raffensperger, but Gabe Sterling (who is one of the top officials in the secretary of state's office, who has just ripped the president and the two Republicans for the election conspiracies) pulled the lever for both Loeffler and Perdue 

Charlie Not just tough, maybe painful. Raffensperger talked openly that when Sen. Perdue called for him to resign, that's when the death threats arrived.

oh yeah, James

Marc All in all, Republicans would take that. Good enough for the majority

Elena Speaking of which, in the privacy and sanctity of the voting booth, do you think Republican Sec of State Brad Raffensperger pulls the GOP lever for Perdue and Loeffler after they both threw him under the bus? That's gotta be a tough vote for him.

Charlie, I think Cobb & Gwinett counties are a tale of demographics. They've got more Blacks and Latinos moving there. And there have been a lot of transplants from other parts of the country.

My guess is we'll see incredibly few ticket splitters and that the only discrepancies between votes for candidates on both sides will be the result of undervoting. Utterly anecdotal, but an acquaintance of mine said he voted Perdue but couldn't vote Loeffler because she was so bad. So he left that race blank

I'm still waiting on 5,000 words on Gabriel Sterling, Charlie.

Maya I'd love to see a political profile of one of those voters

To Elena's point, I'm wondering how many Warnock-Perdue or Ossoff-Loeffler voters we'll find. Both parties have aimed to run as a joint ticket, but they're still two different votes.

Just ask Jon Ossoff's first opponent, Charlie! Karen Handel beat Ossoff in that 2017 runoff (cc: Elena), lost a squeaker to now-Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath in 2018 and then this year ... not a particularly close rematch between still-Rep. McBath and Handel.

Elena that makes sense. Also, Loeffler isn't a native Southerner, and for some folks, that makes a difference.

Teresa I think there's also something to be said about the Loeffler vs. Perdue dynamic, should Warnock outrun Ossoff. Sen. Perdue benefits from incumbency, unlike Loeffler, and he's also seemed to be more palatable to those suburban Republicans in metro Atlanta who turned against Trump but traditionally voted GOP. Loeffler, meanwhile, turned ** much ** harder right in her jungle primary.

The rapid political transformation of places like Cobb and Gwinnett counties, one-time GOP strongholds, continues to amaze me. For decades, the two suburban giants voted in tandem, almost always delivering solid Republican margins. But both left the fold in 2016 to give Hillary Clinton narrow victories and haven't looked back.

Charlie Looks like Gwinnett is only reporting mail votes right now, which we'd expect to be the most Democratic-leaning segment of the total vote. I am really looking forward to some Election Day votes from metro Atlanta to get a full picture

I think for a lot of voters, particularly Black voters, Warnock feels like a known/familiar entity. For starters, he's the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr.'s church. (Fun fact: My grandfather was MLK Jr.'s doctor back in the day.) The Black church and politics are inextricably linked in Atlanta. Andrew Young, former mayor/Congress member/Ambassador, was a pastor. Maynard Jackson, Jr., the first Black mayor of Atlanta, was the son of a politically active pastor. The list goes on....

Another very early observation: With 28% reporting, Ossoff is running well ahead of his Nov. 3 pace in Gwinnett County, a populous Atlanta suburb.

Looks like the Republican Senate candidates are outperforming what they and Trump did in November by a few points in that completed county that Zach just referenced (Webster). We shouldn't read too far into it right now but I'm curious if that holds up in other small counties around the state over the rest of the night -- and whether Dems overperform their November stats in their strongholds

Zach Knocking me over with your data speed

Warnock is on track to overperform in rural areas, something his campaign focused on ahead of the November election. He's also a New Georgia Project alum, which worked tirelessly to turn out hard-to-reach voters.

(In Webster County, Ossoff ran better than Warnock. Take that, James!)

Something to keep a close eye on tonight: based on the (still very early!!) results, Raphael Warnock is outpacing Jon Ossoff in terms of margin. I do not know if that trend will continue, but a split decision is something that operatives in both parties were seeing as a possibility in the final days. And of course, a split decision is not good enough for Democrats, who need both seats to win the Senate

What’s the over/under on a Fulton Snafu?

Republicans are at roughly 700 votes there, to about 550 for each Democrat

Boom. Be like Webster, Georgia

Also, congrats to the teeny tiny Webster County. The Georgia's secretary of state office is showing they've reported all their results!

Lol

Marc Just pacing myself

Took you 34 minutes to attack me, Charlie. You’re slipping

OMG. The polls have only been closed for 30 minutes and Marc is already unspooling his election administration grievances.

If Florida was decided by 11,000 votes, I'm fairly confident we wouldn't have known the winner on Nov. 3

The bulk of Mail ballots arrive BEFORE Election Day

MOST of Georgia's vote will be reported tonight, as it was on Nov. 3 -- but when an election comes down to 11,000 votes ... those trailing ballots matter even more

The problem they've ran in to this year is those ballots that arrive on Election Day -- election officials have struggled to handle those, since Georgia does not have a long history of dealing with a lot of mail ballots

It makes no sense that Election Day results are posted first 

Why are results not posted more quickly?

They do have that system, Marc! County officials can begin the pre-proccessing of mail ballots more than two weeks before the election, and can tabulate when polls close

It’s too bad Georgia doesn’t have a system that makes County election supervisors do what North Carolina and Florida do: process early and absentee ballots ahead of time and tabulate them instantly as soon as polls close.

If they had that system, it would give faster results and cut down on the bogus conspiracy theories about fraud that inevitably arise when results are too slow to trickle in

James if there's a recount, we can expect a whole lot of drama....

If it is really close, it might not be 'till Friday at the earliest! That's the deadline for when ballots from certain military and overseas voters have to be received, as long as the deadline for when voters can fix -- or cure -- deficiencies on their ballot

And of course, if the races are within 0.5 percentage points, we could see a recount drag things even further, as we did in Georgia for the presidential race

I have heard some hopeful to see a call as early as Marc described. I think the majority of folks I'm talking to expect it to be pretty clear tomorrow. But of course, this is all dependent on how tight it is. The closer we are, the longer it will stretch

Excedrine and Monster, Steven

I'm hearing that I'm going to need more coffee, Marc.

A Republican from the state who’s working for the Senate candidates told me he expects that by 2:30 am, we’ll be sure of a winner.

What is everyone else hearing?

Charlie I'm pretty sure it won't take a lot to get people hyperventilating tonight...

Exit polls, Charlie and Zach. We should focus on those. 

Zach I’m sure somewhere on Twitter someone is hyperventilating based on a few percent reporting in Fulton County

Andrew Yep, that's definitely true. Trump had a similar impact on GOP turnout in previous special elections - think NC-09 or even that Pennsylvania race that Dem Rep. Conor Lamb pulled off. Even though Dems ultimately won that, Trump's last-minute rally there, per Republicans at the time, put it closer than it was.

Black voters are also 30% of the rolls

And Trump’s visit last night was certainly geared toward Election Day turnout, James. Despite the messaging mishaps over the past few weeks, Trump is still their biggest asset. 

To James’s point about Black voter turnout, if African-American ballots are 30% of the share of vote, it’s an indicator of a likely Democratic win 

The first returns are in, everybody panic!!! Looks like about 22,000 votes have been reported so far. Do not read into them

Republicans have for a while now been saying their voters, who already prefer to vote on Election Day, are even more likely to do so in this race. So they're placing a big bet on turnout today, and hoping that their ground game ensures limited drop off

Democrats needed that high early turnout and the stronger percentage of Black voters in early voting to stand a chance tonight. They did both those things, which is why we're looking at such close races

I'll bite on that one, Charlie -- just purely numerically, it was A LOT of people. Over 3 million folks voted before today, about a third via the mail, and the rest in-person early voting. For a while, early voting was keeping pace with the November election, but that dropped off over the holidays. Also, Black voters were casting ballots at a remarkable rate: About 30 percent of all early voters were Black, according to data from the fine folks at Georgia Votes

Either way, Rs are in an early vote hole

Democrats estimate their candidates lead by about 200,000 early votes. Republicans say it’s closer to 130k Charlie 

You beat me to it Steven 

Looks like everyone is expecting a tight one tonight. So what do we know about the early vote, either anecdotally or through available data?

Yeah Andrew, they’ve got so much money to burn that they’re flying planes with banners

When you run out of TV airtime, you have to find another way to spend all this money.

The ground games are impressive indeed, James. But I’ve been more struck at just how inundated the state has become with ads—TV, online, billboards, and even up in the sky. As late as 5:30pm, I saw a prop plane flying above Atlanta with a Warnock banner that read: “VOTE TODAY.”

Hello from Atlanta, the center of the universe tonight.

This dual Georgia runoff scenario was always a quietly discussed possibility starting right after Sen. Johnny Isakson’s resignation in 2019, given Georgia's runoff law requiring 50 percent plus one to win in November. There was a GOP divide over Gov. Brian Kemp’s appointment of Kelly Loeffler that led to an intraparty war between her and Rep. Doug Collins, all but guaranteeing a runoff in the special election for the rest of Isakson's term. And while Sen. David Perdue wasn’t really considered among the top tier of vulnerable senators to start the cycle, Georgia slowly but surely rose on the list of competitive states through the cycle, with both GOP and Dem groups investing pretty heavily by the end, even well before Joe Biden’s campaign started to play here in a big way.

The last 8 weeks both parties have built unprecedented ground games, and $500 million has gone up on the airwaves bombarding Georgians with TV ads. Democrats started at a historical disadvantage, but their voters have shown up in runoffs like never before, while most Republicans kept looking to Election Day. So here we are, knowing that Dems have turned out in force, and wondering whether Republicans have done so today by enough of a margin to eke out wins in what everyone expects to be a photo finish.

So, James, you’ve been covering this 24-7 since Election Day and are also in Georgia at the moment. How did we get to a point where control of the Senate came down to two runoff elections... in the same state?

Hey everyone! I went to high school in Atlanta and I have deep roots there. It’s been fascinating to see how Atlanta, and the rest of the state, has been transformed by massive demographic shifts. So I’m looking to see if those demographic shifts that flipped the state blue will make a difference in tonight’s runoffs.

Hello from Atlanta as well.

The smartest and dumbest thing said in politics is that it’s all about turnout. But on this Election Day, it really does matter. Basically, a low Election Day turnout will be our best indicator of a Democratic upset and a high turnout presages a Republican win.

Republicans, who have made Election Day voting a political issue in and of itself, are hoping for 900,000 people to show total, which would probably mean lots of GOP voters. But if it hits 700,000, they’ll probably lose.

If early voting is any indication, the state is on pace for 770,000 Election Day voters. So that’s right in the middle

What’s the turnout today? We really don’t know. That comprehensive, statewide tracking in Georgia is incredibly difficult because this is not a top-down state managed by the state. Instead, it’s a confederation of counties. And there are 159 of them.

Now Republicans felt good about turnout in Cherokee County, which is in the Atlanta media market and is a big one that Trump won with nearly 70% of the vote in November. But in heavily Democratic DeKalb County Election Day turnout exceeded the number of ballots cast in November. 

Hello from Atlanta! One of the most fascinating storylines coming out of these runoffs has been President Trump’s ability — and, really, desire — to trample all over the GOP’s messaging in order to pressure Republican lawmakers to support his long-shot effort to overturn the results of the November election. The Georgia races are shaping up to be a referendum on the president’s influence on the Republican Party after he leaves the White House — and a Loeffler/Perdue victory would help him assert his viability in the GOP. It would also send a message to Republicans who don’t support the Electoral College objections. “People will remember,” Trump declared at his Dalton rally last night. It was one of his loudest applause lines. 

Hi, Charlie. It's great to be back. Tonight is unprecedented: double-barreled runoffs in one state to decide control of the Senate. But there is helpful precedent for breaking it down tonight: We just had a closely divided election in Georgia two months ago. That's going to prove very helpful in breaking down the results county-by-county with all of you tonight.

It also means, as Zach hinted, we have precedent about how the vote counting will go. And we know from November that Election Day votes are counted faster, and less-populated (mostly Republican-leaning) counties report faster. That means we should expect the Republican candidates to lead in the vote count for much of the evening. Call it the "red mirage," or the "blue shift," or whatever you want. President Trump, who lost Georgia, had a 10-point lead at midnight on election night. It evaporated as all the votes were finally counted.

Hey gang! Excited to be here. Tonight I’m looking at the results out of Georgia’s rural counties, places Democrats once all but conceded to Republicans but have poured lots of money and resources into this time around. A number of Democratic and voting rights groups even opened field offices in places like Valdosta in Lowndes County, to show that they feel the entire state is in play. If they overperform there, it's one way they could cut into the GOP's lead at the margins.

I’m going to be watching the vote compared to November’s baselines in a handful of places — metro Atlanta, rural majority-Black counties, Trump country. Georgia provides some of the most detailed election returns of any state, and the November election was basically a big poll that split close to 50-50. We should be able to watch two things: First of all, is one party consistently outperforming what they’d need to get a majority, going precinct by precinct as those places count all their votes (early and Election Day)?

And also, are we going to watch the urban-rural divide widen in real time? The story of the Trump era has been big metro areas and smaller exurban and rural communities racing apart from each other with each successive election. Just about every special election situation in the last four years has been Democrats doing better than ever before in the big suburbs but Republicans doing even better than that in hundreds of smaller communities. It’s only been two months since the last election, but those divides may have widened again already.

Hey, all! Great to be back together again. I feel like I'm ending in the exact same place where we started the Trump era -- covering Jon Ossoff. I basically moved to Atlanta for a few weeks in May and June 2017 to cover the Georgia 6th congressional special election -- the first (major) election during the Trump era. (And James Arkin memorably wrote about Ossoff's evolution as a candidate, if you're interested!) 

I'll be watching JUST how close things get tonight, especially as both sides consider a potential recount... I scooped the details that Facebook was going to fully reinstate it's political ad ban, after making an exemption for the Georgia runoffs. Strategists are already telling me about how problematic this will be if the race is close, which we all expect it to be. But just HOW close it'll be tonight may tell us how furious operatives will be tomorrow about this new ban. And what does it mean that campaigns won't be able to air digital ads about "ballot curing" (fixing errors in your ballot so they count) or about a potential recount? This could be a really big deal, and I'm keeping a close eye on it.

Hey, Charlie! Happy week 53 of 2020. What I'm watching tonight: The clock! (Har har.) But seriously, I'm going to be keeping an eye on how vote tallying goes. Like in November, I think it is entirely possible we don't know the winner of either runoff tonight -- and that's okay! It takes election officials time to process and tally mail ballots ... and at least a million of them have been returned for the runoffs. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said to not expect results tonight in an interview earlier today on Fox News: "Depends how close it is, but most likely it will probably be tomorrow morning," he said. “It really depends on how many absentee ballots."

How's everyone doing? What are you watching for tonight?

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the outcome of these races. If Democrats manage to pick off both seats, President-elect Joe Biden will be working with a Democratic Senate and Democratic House for the first two years of his term. If not, Biden will be working with a Republican Senate and Democratic House -- a divided government scenario which will make it much more difficult for Biden to implement his agenda.

There are two Senate seats on the ballot today and Democrats must win both to gain a Senate majority. (If that were to happen, the Senate would be evenly divided 50-50 and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would serve as the tie-breaking vote for Democrats.) Republicans will hold their majority if they win just one of the two seats.

Hello and welcome to POLITICO’s Georgia Senate runoff live chat. The polls are now closed and we’ll be here for the next few hours talking about the results in the two elections that will decide control of the Senate.