Something came home to me last night that I’ve realized for a while but crystalized for me in a new way. If you’re into elections and want to watch results on election night you should never watch them on TV. Ever. If you were watching last night’s election on TV you probably had the sense the race was a close run thing with the lead bouncing back and forth, with Herschel Walker possibly mounting a comeback after weeks of coverage that made Raphael Warnock appear a favorite to win a full term. If you watched the results through my curated Twitter feed of election number crunchers, though, you saw something very different: from the very first returns it looked likely — and then with growing clarity — that the results would roughly bear out the polls, which showed Warnock with a modest but significant lead. The final results this morning show Warnock beating Walker by just shy of three percentage points, almost on the dot of what the consensus of polls predicted.

I’m a bit of a broken record on this. But it’s true enough to bear some repeating. Raphael Warnock and Mark Kelly are two incredibly able politicians. Until 2018 and 2020, Democrats hadn’t been elected to Senate seats in Arizona and Georgia for decades. They’ve now both done it twice, in two consecutive cycles and under dramatically different political conditions. Of course, these aren’t feats of superhuman political powers. This is the direction of these states. But they are only on the cusp of being purple states. To chalk up two consecutive wins you need to be doing everything right. And both of them did.

9:36 PM: Okay, the man has spoken. Dave Wasserman of The Cook Report says it’s done: Warnock defeats Walker.

9:29 PM: I think Warnock continues to have the inside track. The uncertainty is that we don’t know precisely the makeup of the votes in those blue counties where lots of votes are left. Those could be heavily same day and actually lean to Walker. So there’s still some uncertainty. But it’s a significant uncertainty in an overall context where signs really point to a Walker win. In North Georgia Walker has put up numbers he needs to win. But in the rest of the state the pattern is Warnock making modest but consistent gains on his November totals. It would be a surprise if that pattern didn’t continue in metro Atlanta. But who knows?

9:06 PM: Not clear to me how much visibility there is into these early counts out of the Atlanta area counties into what’s election day and early. You could speculate that they’ve only counted the Warnock-leaning earlies so far and next up is Walker. But I kinda doubt that. I think this is Warnock’s unless something wildly unexpected happens.

9:01 PM: We finally got a big chunk of the vote in in DeKalb County. Still only around ~50% reporting. But starting to show the numbers that put Warnock ahead. At this point this is where the remaining votes are, this and similar counties. So even though Warnock’s overall lead is razor thin it should grow.

8:37 PM: Have said it over and over. But it’s still the same. Warnock probably wins tonight. But we don’t have the votes in metro Atlanta. That will tell the story. Walker needs a strong showing in metro Atlanta, relative to expectations. Doesn’t seem likely. But run-offs are unpredictable. Just to give a sense 5% of the vote in in DeKalb, 55% in Fulton, 53% in Gwinnett, in Cobb 23%.

8:32 PM: One of the people I follow just put together the numbers and found that in all five counties with more than 10k total votes Warnock is bettering his November margins. That’s a clear indicator.

8:27 PM: It’s hard to do a methodical analysis in real time. But I keep seeing completed red-rural counties where Walker is falling off his margins from November. The differences are quite small, a percentage point or two. But remember, he came in second in November. So falling back is bad. That’s not the story in every county. But it’s more than not from what I can see. The picture seems to be crystallizing in Warnock’s direction. That’s my read at least. Definitely need to see the big metros to be on firm ground.

8:16 PM: Same picture. Basically a re-run of November 8th but with Walker seeming to be very slightly underperforming his November numbers in the now completed red rural counties. Advantage Warnock but far from done. If you’re the Walker campaign you have to be hoping that Warnock underperforms on his home turf in metro Atlanta. That’s not what you’d expect. But run-off turnout is unpredictable. So by no means can you rule it out.

7:58 PM: Gist so far seems to be this: There was some thought that demoralization on Walker side might lead to the bottom dropping out and a solid win for Warnock. That’s now what we’re seeing so far. It’s very close, based on what we’re seeing so far. In the completed counties, which are almost all red rural counties, Warnock’s is very slightly improving his margins. That sounds like he’s on the road to another close victory. But the big metros are still an open question. And surprises there in either direction could change things substantially. The thing to remember is that Walker was ahead by a tiny margin in November. So broadly speaking percentages that are a replay of last month are good for him.

7:46 PM: We’re in the early numbers and all the vagaries of early voting and election day voting makes it hard to make sense of early numbers. That makes you reliant on the few completed or near completed counties. That removes questions about different kinds of voting from the equation. So far that’s only small red counties. They’re showing a tight race but in most cases Warnock very, very slightly improving his margins from November 8th. Given that he was ahead of Walker in round one (but under 50%) that’s obviously a positive for Warnock. Still early though and there’s a lot we don’t know about election day in the more populous counties.

Trump Organization found guilty on all seventeen counts in New York City trial. More shortly.

I had been told by some that the appointment of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was a problem since there would be a lengthy period of his coming up to speed on the case, hiring staff, perhaps even revisiting earlier parts of the investigation. Seems that was not the case. In fairness, I think Attorney General Garland was clear on this point. Smith was brought in to oversee the case, make the tough calls on decisions to prosecute. In other words, take over Garland’s role. Nothing Garland said gave any indication that anything in the investigation would pause, re-cover old ground or slow down to bring on new staff. It now seems clear Smith hit the ground running.

I included yesterday’s post “Hang It Around Their Necks” as the main post in yesterday’s edition of The Dispatch newsletter. And I got a note back from TPM Reader NM. I’m not sure whether this is a case of my disagreeing with NM or not writing the post itself with sufficient clarity. I wanted to share NM‘s note and my response because I think it gets at something key about the current moment.

From NM …

We know that before the pandemic there were political fringes on the right and left which opposed vaccination. But the idea that politics would have anything to do with whether you got your flu shot would have seemed strange. Now, however, we’re seeing another concrete downstream effect of anti-vaccine activism on the right.

We’re now in the midst of a pretty bad flu season. That appears mostly due to the fact that the population has been relatively insulated from contagious respiratory diseases for going on three years. Our immune systems are out of practice. But it’s not only that. Vaccination rates are also down. New data show that vaccination rates among US children are down 4.8% compared to before the pandemic. But the details tell a more specific story. Vaccination rates among Black and Hispanic children are still slightly behind where they were pre-pandemic. Among white children however, the rates are down more than 7%.

Former Miami Congressman David Rivera (R-FL) arrested on federal charges tied to a consulting contract with a Venezuelan oil company. The charges contained in the indictment are yet to be unsealed.

Ronna McDaniel has now served three terms as head of the RNC, almost entirely on the basis of being the choice of Donald Trump. Her loyalty was so great she agreed to change her name for him. Professionally known as Ronna Romney McDaniel until 2017, she dropped her middle-family name reportedly to please Trump. Now she has drawn what appears to be her first serious challenger for a close to unprecedented fourth term, Harmeet Dhillon. (MyPillow guy Mike Lindell is running. But that’s a longshot.)