Thread by @gelliottmorris

As always, given complexities with early v in-person votes and geographic variation in partisan loyalty, best to wait for a representative set of each to report before drawing conclusions about these GA numbers. Warnock up big in early vote ≠ victory

For example, the raw partisan split of early votes in Fulton County look a few points better for Warnock than a benchmark for a tied race. But without knowing the election-day numbers in rural areas or urban Atlanta, that’s not enough to make any calls

We have one fully reporting county and the result is exactly in line with Nov’s results — which would be a Warnock win if it holds everywhere else

I bet the needle starts out at D+1

i’m sorry, but if we know this is mostly early vote, why tweet out the county numbers at all?

https://twitter.com/FiveThirtyEight/status/1600286381900800004

Everything in GA so far is consistent with nearly complete stasis (in partisan outcome) since Nov — ie, D+1. That’s a good prior but lots left to count!

see?

this is going to be a close election, and a long night of counting. but one way to gauge uncertainty is to ask how counties coming in every ~20m compare to predictions based on previously reporting counties. and so far everything keeps coming in on updated benchmarks around D+1

i’m not doing decimals

https://twitter.com/reindeernavy/status/1600293371544621056

this is where the uncertainty is IMO. the small sample size of very Dem counties show sharper dropoffs in turnout than very Rep counties. if you think that holds, Walker pulls this off. but if you think Atlanta is different, then Warnock is up.
or you could wait for the count!

https://twitter.com/redistrict/status/1600293442445156352

My guess is 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.)

blue (but small) randolph county came in 4 points more democratic than Nov with an equal decrease in turnout to redder districts. i reckon that moved the live models to expect a better warnock performance in atlanta, and a big swing in odds to the left. outcomes converging?

walker is running out of time for things to turn in his favor. every county now seems to grow warnock’s lead in the models

Pattern so far is Walker hitting benchmarks in rural areas but falling short in cities and larger counties. Eg, Glynn, Thomas, Baldwin, and Tift are all more Democratic relative to Nov. If that is a hint at what happens in urban counties this is coming up Warnock

Trigger-happy posters might start tweeting that Warnock is the projected winner. That’s fine and might even be a good call! But if you want higher odds you have to wait for Atlanta. By nature surprises tend to hide where we least expect them…

Yes BUT turnout is down more than in other counties — potentially a mirror image to regional drop off in turnout from 2020 to 2021, if other counties follow suit

https://twitter.com/redistrict/status/1600302528595300352

If this is real and not a data error I have to imagine that’s almost all the models need to converge on a Warnock win

https://twitter.com/HWLavelleMaps/status/1600303625825267712

the NYT needle appears to be dead for now, but the WaPo model from @lennybronner and co has seemingly converged on a very very likely Warnock win washingtonpost.com/election-resul…

Current patterns indicate Raphael Warnock will net at least 200k more votes from the major Atlanta counties, if patterns hold (note “IF” here—there is some uncertainty, though IMO not much) which would put him in a commanding lead over Herschel Walker after all votes are counted

Surely the result in Athens (3 points more D in vote margin, turnout down 8%) will convince those who are uncertain about Warnock’s lead

here’s the big picture right now:
- turnout in blue counties is higher than turnout in red counties, relative to Nov
- votes in fully reporting counties are on average 1 pt more dem than in nov
- there are >200k more net Warnock votes outstanding in/around Atlanta