8:00 PM: So here’s something interesting. In the Georgia Senate race, a lot of the Walker-leaning polls showed him getting like 25% of the African-American vote. That would be super high for a Republican. And most political observers were skeptical of that. Early results throw a lot of cold water on that prediction. So that puts a dent in the credibility of a lot of the polls that showed Walker strength. Again, doesn’t mean Warnock wins. But it’s an encouraging sign for him.
7:52 PM: We’ve talked a lot about “red mirages”, same day votes showing big GOP wins then slowing giving way to early Dem-leaning votes. That pattern, which we saw in spades in 2020, is a big deal tonight too. But there’s more than that. We knew in 2020 that early versus same day was hugely, hugely polarized by party. It still is to a great degree. But we don’t know just how much. That adds another wrinkle of uncertainty. So just keep that in mind. That’s one reason I suspect we’re not seeing a lot of early calls. It doesn’t mean races are necessarily close. It just really complicates the way race-callers look at results and infer where things are going.
7:36 PM: Here are the five states where abortion is literally on the ballot. TPM Alum Alice Ollstein (we have so many amazing alums) has this deep dive on the referendum in Kentucky, which seems to be really struggling (i.e., the anti-abortion referendum is struggling.)
7:32 PM: In Georgia the Senate race looks about as tight as the polls have been suggesting for some time. Meanwhile, there’s a big divergence between Kemp and Walker, which is again just what the polls have shown for a long time. So the early look at Georgia says it’s pretty much what the polls have been predicting. Worth noting that at this point in the evening “close” may not be that close in the final result.
7:26 PM: The only signal I’ve been able to pick out from the noise so far is that Florida looks quite rough for Democrats tonight. But the shape of the electorate in Florida does not look like the shape in other states. That does not mean that Dems are having a great night elsewhere. Just that Florida looks like it’s own thing and not necessarily representative of the rest of the country. Again, very, very preliminary reads.
