2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[N.E. Brigand]

Cute line from Raphael Warnock about Herschel Walker tonight: "He was an amazing running back, and come Tuesday we'll send him running back to Texas."

[RoseMorninStar]

Had to look it up, Rose. He's been diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder, AKA multiple personality disorder. He claims he's cured though. https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=4156516&page=1

Others have speculated he took one too many hits to the head during his football career, and that's what is causing his problems in forming a coherent sentence, and also his outbursts of anger.

And this is considered optimal in the GOP for a high level office (along with everything else)?

[N.E. Brigand]

In Georgia, a new one-day record for early voting was set on Monday, when more than 300,000 people voted. That was 70,000 more than the previous record for one day of early voting in Georgia, which was set in 2018.

The new record was then broken again on Tuesday, when over 309,000 people voted.

Does this bode well for incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in his bid to stave off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker of Texas in this Georgia run-off election? I have no idea. I will note that the previous early voting record didn't help Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams win the governorship in 2018 (although she got closer than she did this year, I believe -- on the other hand, this year, her opponent had the advantage of incumbency). CNN says the reason for the high turnout is probably the "compressed timeline" for this year's early voting. Georgia's secretary of state, Gabriel Sterling, says that younger voters account for about 25% of the turnout thus far.

Republican officials are being explicit about why they want Walker to win: it "allows us to hold up all those appointments," i.e., it will undermine President Biden's efforts to properly staff the government and to fill judicial vacancies.

And the last day of early voting in the runoff election easily beat those two records set earlier this week: more than 350,000 people voted today.

[Sunsilver]

I came across this film early this morning which looks at the history of voter suppression in Georgia. It has some very well-known people behind it (Martin Sheen, and Leonardo DiCaprio's father, George DiCaprio.)

Although it has its flaws, it's pretty darn chilling. You can watch it for free, but you do have to register: https://watch.showandtell.film/watch/vigilante-ga/

I think it does a lot to explain why Trump was so surprised he lost Georgia in the 2021 election, and why he was so convinced he could get the vote to swing in his favour.

[N.E. Brigand]

The New York Times needle doesn't have enough data yet, but I notice that every time the totals update, Raphael Warnock's enormous very early lead gets cut down. With 15% of the vote in, he was at 64%. Five minutes later, with 21% of the vote in, he's down to 57%.*

Dave Wasserman notes that in Washington Co., which Walker flipped in November (vs. Warnock's result in Jan. 2021), Herschel Walker's margin improved over last month's result: he won it by 1.4% then but won it by 2.1% today.

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*Edited to add:
With 30% of the vote in, Warnock has 55%.
With 35% of the vote in, Warnock has 56%.

[N.E. Brigand]

The needle is live and shows a toss-up race leaning slightly to Raphael Warnock.

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Edited to add:
At 40% of the vote counted, Warnock is still at 56%.
At 45% of the vote counted, Warnock is still at 56%.
This is mostly early vote so far, and prognosticators say Herschel Walker is doing better than expected so far.
At 50% of the vote counted, Warnock's total has fallen to 53%.

[N.E. Brigand]

Despite that, the needle now has the race "leaning" to Raphael Warnock, who is predicted to have a 71% chance of winning.

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Edited to add:
G. Elliot Morris of the Economist expects that "people will start calling this as soon as precincts in and around Atlanta start submitting final tallies. The rest of the state is telling a story that is remarkably consistent with Nov’s D+1 outcome. (Assuming, that is, those counties match the benchmarks.)"

[RoseMorninStar]

With all of the early voting I didn't expect there to be results for several days, if not a week.

[N.E. Brigand]

With 55% of the vote in, Raphael Warnock's lead has slipped again, down to 51%.

But the New York Times needle says he's "probably" going to win; it puts his odds at 78%.

The top elections' analysts are gravitating toward a prediction of Warnock winning this by 1%, which is the same lead he had over Herschel Walker in November.

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Edited to add:
Interesting to watch the needle move in real time. Herschel Walker improved his total in rural Gordon County from a 61.7% advantage in November to a 64.5% advantage tnoight, and the needle immediately dropped Raphael Warnock's chances from 78% to 61%.
Herschel Walker now has taken the lead. But I'm only posting totals when we reach increments of 5% of the vote, so I'll note that when we get to 60% tabulated.
The Times needle "has been paused while we investigate a data issue."

[N.E. Brigand]

Welp. With 60% of the vote in, the race has flipped, and Herschel Walker now leads with 51% of the vote.

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Edited to add:
With 65% of the vote in, Herschel Walker continues to hold the lead with 51%.
(I have to run an errand, so I won't be posting for at least the next hour.)
Hadn't stepped away just yet, so I'll note that with 70% of the vote in, Raphael Warnock has regained the lead, with 50%.
(OK, now I'm out for a bit.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Based on where most of the votes feft to be counted aren it looks very good for Warnock.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/g ... er/351741/

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And

[River]

I was just about to post that Warnock was the projected winner.

I hope that Walker takes a nice rest and gets the neurological and/or psychological help he needs.

[N.E. Brigand]

I get home to find the TV networks showing Herschel Walker in the lead.

As indeed does the New York Times, but their needle gives Raphael Warnock a 95% chance of winning.

And as V notes above, analyst Dave Wasserman predicts Warnock will win by somewhere between 2 and 4 points.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

AP and all major outlets have now called the race for Warnock. His final margin is likely to be 3-4 points.

[River]

Walker's pretty much tapped out as far as votes go. What remains is in heavy D areas. Warnock's been bringing in the margins he needs.

[Túrin Turambar]

Of all the individual 2022 outcomes, this was the one I was most hoping for, on pure principle. Of course, there were still quite a few countries where Walker got in excess of 80% of the vote *headdesk*.

[N.E. Brigand]

AP and all major outlets have now called the race for Warnock. His final margin is likely to be 3-4 points.

Yeah. There will be some minor adjustments, probably further adding to Raphael Warnock's margin, and at this point at noon the next day, his lead over Herschel Walker is 51.4%-48.6%, which is 2.8% and more than 95,000 votes.

Warnock had won the Jan. 5, 2021 runoff against Kelly Loeffler by 2.0%, but turnout was higher, so that was about 94,000 votes. As most people probably remember, there were two runoff elections for U.S. Senate in Georgia that day. In the other one, Jon Ossoff came from behind (he had been second in the first round in Nov. 2020) to defeat David Perdue by 1.2%, which was 55,000 votes.

[N.E. Brigand]

The 2022 election marks the first time since 1934 that the party in the White House successfully defended all U.S. Senate seats, and the first time since 1912 that all incumbent senators kept their seats -- which means it's the first time ever that all incumbent senators won reelection, since prior to 1914 (following the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913), senators weren't elected by the public but instead were appointed by state legislatures.

[N.E. Brigand]

As noted here, Raphael Warnock's reelection makes it unlikely that Kamala Harris will set the record for the most tie-breaking votes by a Vice President in the U.S. Senate. She's ranked third, with 26 votes, which is well ahead of the fourth place slot held by George Dallas, who served from 1845 to 1849 and cast 19 tie-breaking votes. It all depends on what happens in the next month and after the 2024 or 2026 elections. She is behind John Adams, second with 29 votes during his tenure as V.P. from 1789 to 1797. John Calhoun's record of 31 votes dates to 1825-1832.