Fra Zerohedge:
Update (2310ET): With 91% having reported, the election projections show no chance of Loeffler winning and Perdue’s odds fading fast, despite a very significant raw vote count lead for both Republicans…
But still on a raw count, both Republicans have taken notable leads…
As a reminder, most of the votes counted so far are early votes and absentee ballots, both areas where Democrats were expected to fare well.
How the night progressed:
- 1910ET 1% Both Dems
- 1920ET 3% Both Reps – stocks rallied
- 1930ET 8% Both Dems – stocks stalled
- 1940ET 11% Both Dems – stocks rallied
- 1950ET 17% Both Dems – stocks at high of day
- 2000ET 19% Both Dems – stocks tumbled
- 2010ET 30% Both Dems – stocks low of day, gold spiked
- 2020ET 40% Both Dems – stocks tumbling
- 2030ET 45% Both Dems – stocks new lows
- 2040ET 49% Both Dems (small move back towards GOP) – stocks at lows
- 2050ET 54% Both Dems (losing their edge)
- 2100ET 60% Both Dems but lead shrinking
- 2110ET 65% Both Dems lead continues to shrink
- 2120ET 69% Both Dems lead projection
- 2130ET 70% Both Reps take lead on a raw count – we note that the pace of voting is slowing dramatically
Something odd just happened:
- 2140ET 76% Both Reps lead on the raw vote count
- 2150ET 78% Both Democrats remain heavily favored, despite their deficit in the tabulated vote. They’re favored to win the vote left to be counted by 9 to 10 points – stocks sinking
- 2200ET 80% Warnock projected lead steady, Ossoff projected lead shrinking – Chatham County, which includes Warnock’s hometown, Savannah, and Cobb County, an increasingly diverse Atlanta suburb, still have large chunks of uncounted votes.
- 2210ET 82% No change
- 2220ET 85% While both Reps have solid tabulated vote count leads, both Dems remain projected to win.
- 2230ET 86% The chance of a Loeffler victory are extremely small now but Perdue still stands a chance based on projections – stocks sinking
- 2240ET 87% Warnock’s lead is now projected to be insurmountable, Nasdaq making news lows
- 2250ET 87% No change
- 2300ET 90% Warnock’s odds of a win top 95%, Ossoff odds top 89%
- 2305ET 91% Reps both lead raw count but Chatham County (Savannah) just called it for the night (a Dem stronghold county) – will resume at 8am
- 2310ET 91% Perdue is leading by 120,000 votes. But state election official Gabriel Sterling says DeKalb County has 171,000 votes to upload. Those will skew heavily to the Democrats.
Stocks are making new lows as Warnock’s lead grows on the projected vote…
The reflation trade is back on as Nasdaq plunges, Small Caps are bid…
And bonds are also getting dumped…
And PredictIt odds collapsed…
These were the most expensive Senate races ever…
- Roughly $404 million was spent on advertising in the Perdue-Ossoff race, according to Advertising Analytics, making it the most expensive Senate race ever.
- Nearly $300 million was spent on advertising in the Loeffler-Warnock race, making it the second most expensive Senate race ever – behind only Perdue-Ossoff.
Most Georgia voters said that deciding which party controls the Senate was the “single most important factor” in casting their ballot, according to A.P. voter surveys.
* * *
Update (1900ET): The polls have closed in the two Georgia Runoff elections that will determine control of the US Senate…mostly!
Yahoo News reports that voting hours have been extended at several polling sites in the Georgia runoff election.
A judge ordered the Chatham County Board of Elections to extend the voting times in two locations beyond 7pm ET, after they experienced technical difficulties.
“A power outage, or something happened that knocked the power out at the polling location, which stalled the ability for citizens to vote for about 35 minutes,” said Chatham Elections Board Member Antwan Lang.
The court order means that the county’s Old Courthouse polling station will stay open until 7.33pm ET, and Beach High School will close at 7.35pm ET, according to WSAV.
Turnout in the duel Senate runoffs has already set a record in Georgia, beating a record previously set in 2008, when former Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) faced off against Democrat Jim Martin.
And now we wait.
Gabriel Sterling, the elections system manager in Georgia, said that it could be “a couple days” before the winners are called if the results show tight races. Of course, if November was anything to go by, should one of the Democrats be leading early, we suspect the media will be quick to call the race… but not if Republicans are leading.
As a reminder, Biden ‘won’ Georgia by 11,779 votes in November and many media outlets did not call the state for at least three days after the election.
