What Happened This Week In Washington — And Georgia

One person who has to be liking what he’s seeing tonight? West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who — as the most moderate member of the Senate Democratic caucus — would wield tremendous power in a 50-50 Senate.

Where are there votes left to be counted? Well, a lot are in the Atlanta area. Less than 40 percent of the expected vote is in from each of Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb counties, three of the four biggest counties in the state — together, those three made up nearly a quarter of the November presidential vote, and perhaps only a third of their collective votes are in so far.

Good point from Other Nate here. Given that we had a very similar election two months ago, that probably reduces the uncertainty about how the rest of the vote will go. That might explain why betting markets (and Twitter) are more confident about Democrats’ chances than the needle, which isn’t accounting for how having had an election in November makes the forecasting a bit easier tonight.