What Happened This Week In Washington — And Georgia

Taking a step back, Ossoff and Warnock both lead 55 percent to 45 percent with 43 percent of the expected vote counted. Given that local voting patterns still point to a very close race, that means that there probably isn’t a “red mirage” in the early results after all. As Laura pointed out earlier, there was simply no guarantee that vote-reporting patterns would be the same in January as they were in November. As it turned out, many of the big, blue, Atlanta-area counties dropped their results relatively early.

I’m curious to see how voter turnout stacks up overall. More than 3 million Georgians voted early, which is a record high for a runoff in that state. And that’s almost as many as the general election, when more than 3.8 million voters cast their ballot early. And that’s with four fewer early voting days thanks to the December holidays!

Friend-of-the-site Leah Askarinam makes a good point here: