Georgia on My Mind

Usually, California time is problematic for national live broadcasts.  Either we get the programs earlier than ideal, or they're tape-delayed and not live at all.  It tends to only work out in our favor when elections run late into the night.  So, while the East Coast is hitting 2:00 AM as the Georgia election sits paper thin between Jon Ossoff and David Perdue, and Raphael Warnick up by 49,000 and significant batches of Democratic votes left to report -- it's only a 11 o'clock in the evening here.  Time even to put on a late movie if I wanted to -- which I don't.  Election Nights are a near-religious experience to me.

How twisting has this night been?  When I started to write this a couple hours ago, I originally wrote that Jon Ossoff was down by only 3,000 votes -- and then I had to rewrite it as that margin dropped to down by just 919 votes...and now he took the lead by 3,560 votes.  (At first I wrote "3,500 votes." but at this point, every digit matters.)

By the way, I'm sure that all night long, Jon Ossoff has been calling out to anyone within hearing distance his plaintive question about what 37,000 people split their Democratic votes?  Though if his lead holds, and that appears likely, as tight as it is, I'm sure he'll be okay with it.

Of course, most-especially since some counties have closed their doors for the night, nothing is likely to be decided for at least a day, at least in Ossoff's race.  And even when those official numbers are in, there will very probably be a recount.  (The Warnock race is outside that standard at the moment, and should stay above it.)  And when that is finished a few days later, then we still have all the Republican lawsuits to come, in both races if the Democratic candidates are ahead at that point.  So, if we're lucky, we'll know who controls the Senate for absolute certain officially by Joe Biden's Inauguration...

Of course, it should be sooner for the Warnock-Loeffler race, which appears to be a Democratic win.  And while the outstanding votes, that are mostly in "core Democratic" areas, suggest Ossoff is in a very respectable position to win -- and if I absolutely had to bet cash money, that's what I'd bet -- it's still far too close to try to claim such a thing.  Though I suspect that Chuck Schumer may ask Mitch McConnell's Majority Leader's office manager if there's a time it'd be okay for him to come in and measure the windows for new drapes.

One thing we can be sure of -- Trump and, by default, other cult Republicans will be crying fraud and fix with both elections so close.  After all, when you're a one-trick pony, then that's the trick you play...over and over and over and over.  Hey, Trump claimed the election was rigged in 2016, and he won!  Though in fairness he did lose the popular vote by 3 million.

As for Trump, it's shocking to think that him whining about losing the presidential race and spending all his time dividing the Republican Party over a foolhardy, sociopathic, infantile, delusional, seditious attempt to overthrow the election with clearly no chance of succeeding didn't help Republicans in Georgia.  Go figure.

The numbers will most certainly change throughout the rest of the night -- or wee hours in the morning by the clock in points east.  But at a certain time, one has to stop typing.  And the flip side of the advantages of being in California on Election Night is that by the time I get up "the morning after" and make my way to the computer, it will be closer to noon than daybreak, so most everyone else will be far ahead of me...

And so, as I wrap up for the night with information that those already asleep don't have, I trundle off knowing that when most people read this, they will know more than me.  Which shouldn't be all that surprising...