What Happened This Week In Washington — And Georgia

Yeah, Nathaniel, if Republicans do lose these races, the narrative turns into a choose your own adventure for Republicans. They can either say, “Hey, we need a Trump type to turn out low-propensity non-college-educated white voters, otherwise we lose.” Or they could say, “Hey, all that nutty authoritarian stuff didn’t work with suburbanites and we need to pivot.” I imagine we will see both of those options on offer from GOP candidates in 2022 and 2024. If Republicans win tonight, I imagine there will still be a similar debate, but there will be more momentum behind the status quo.

Sarah, I honestly don’t think the results in Georgia will factor into Trump’s rhetoric much — at least not in any logical way. If the Republicans win, Trump might say something like, “See, this proves they stole the election when I was on the ballot.” In other words, I wouldn’t expect truth or consistency.

Geoffrey pointed out that Perdue and Loeffler are outperforming Trump in Georgia’s Republican-leaning counties so far. If that continues and they, say, win, what does that do to Trump’s messaging that the election in Georgia was fraudulent? And what happens if they don’t win, but they still outperform Trump?