Nate Cohn

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Results (for Ossoff) so far v. our pre-election expectations: Absentee: D+4.1 better than we expected Early: D+.3 Election day: D+1.3 --on turnout-- Early: 100% of expected Absentee 98.4% (expect the remainder tmro/later) Election day: 106% (good for GOP; not enough so far) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

In DeKalb, at least, it's about 7k low. Don't know about elsewhere https://t.co/5XmwQUPats — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

One danger for the Republicans: yes, they can hope to do better by *vote share* in the remaining Atlanta area vote... but they can't hope for it to be smaller than modeled in DeKalb/Fulton. We actually know the turnout in DeKalb was higher than the model currently estimates — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

There's a case for taking the 'over' on the needle. It builds in tabulation errors, which we don't expect but definitely happen (see NC)! And we haven't increased our confidence to reflect that we just had this election. Won't be any Miami-Dades tonight https://t.co/UWbpmR4Vn0 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

In particular, there's basically no ATL area Election Day vote. If they're going to mount a comeback, doing better than expected there will probably be pretty important https://t.co/UQfyS8yaS5 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

We're now up to 45k election day votes, and --it's 6% higher than we expected (good for GOP) --Ossoff running .5 pts better than expected. On balance, that's an ok trade for the GOP--but not good enough to be favored Still, GOP could do better in what's left — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

One minor thing to point out about our log. The 'expected' is what the needle expected heading into the update, not what the baseline was at the beginning of the night. So, the greater stability now is a reflection of the needle figuring things out https://t.co/i2oRolXWfk — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The key area of uncertainty is the election day vote. So far we only have 22k election day votes. They can do better with what's left — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The key question: how representative is the vote? Can GOP run ahead of what's left, even though they've run behind in what's counted? We try and control for that demographically, but you never know — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Warnock now estimated to lead by a point, according to our estimates. He's running slightly ahead of expectations across all methods only good news for GOP is that the election day vt is about 5% higher than expected, but that doesn't quite work out. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

If you've been watching the needle, you know that Democrats have very consistently--if subtly--run ahead of expectations. But I think this textbox does a nice job of showing it just wouldn't take much the rest of the way to cancel it out https://t.co/lFCNtMcfZK — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

A wash, if it kept up, would not work out for the GOP. Dems running ahead of our expectations on advance vote (mainly mail), so they'll have to make that up at some point (whether by doing better in remaining advance or election day vote) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

It's still very early, but here's an initial look at election day vote with 14k votes highly unrepresentative votes processed: Election day turnout 6% higher than our baseline (bad for Dems) Dems running 1.5 pts ahead of what we expected (good for Dems) Together: ~wash — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Needle and results pages are run off of separate data feeds, interestingly https://t.co/LgGB4Ifnyb — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@deniseanita why check out our page! https://t.co/JpD1jqSs4E — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Ever so slightly, and that's why the needle has nudged its way ever so slightly to the left to start. But there's still a long way to go, and we know nothing about election day really https://t.co/2UZzmiWUj6 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

One easy way to track: our update-by-update log. So far, few surprises. https://t.co/fXbcyfvpSN — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

So far, Dems are faring net-4.5 pts better than we expected in the absentee vote and exactly as expected in the early vote. We only have 2600 election day votes, so we'll wait on that but what little we have is in line with where the needle started the night — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

We're starting to get some votes and most of it is early and absentee votes, where Democrats were expected to fare well. In our view, Dems faring a hair better than expected in the absentee vote, but the big question mark is the Election Day vote and we still have very little — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

You can track how our estimates by method evolve here https://t.co/Ax5DHYue4v — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

To be precise, so far Election Day turnout is 17% higher than expected (overall expected 1.15m iirc) but it's also 7 pts more Dem. But we're talking about a mere 644 votes so please don't read into this--just going deep on a small update to explain how it works — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

I'm not going to play by play each update, but take this one. Dems did better than expected in these most recent votes, but est nudged back toward Perdue. What you can't see (and maybe we should add) is that the Election Day turnout there was higher than expected https://t.co/9Rxcpynfqh — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

On that turnout half, you'd be surprised how many messy precinct-level turnouts there are--in part because of imperfect election administration (say, you report all of your election day votes as early votes or whatever). I don't think they were all cleared up in the recount tbh — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

In testing, I've got to tell you that this won't always seem 'rational'--you can't see the turnout half of the equation, to take one obvious thing that was actually pretty important in the way the needle moved in November. But it's enjoyable imo — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

One new feature: https://t.co/NtznlZJYsj — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The polls are closed and the needle is operational https://t.co/0j5ZRAkGmI — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

But these needle starting 'estimates' aren't a prediction. It has to open somewhere, and it's opening at 50/50 simply because we don't know what'll happen. As results come in, the needle will move depending on whether one side does better than its initial expectations — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

As election day turnout increases, the GOP burden on election day decreases. And interestingly, modeling an increase in election day turnout *does* increase Democratic support on Election Day (this is kind of just a modeling artifact, but there's logic too it) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The needle will open with both races at '50/50' with a turnout of 4.3m and the GOP winning the Election Day vote by about 30 points. That's nothing more than a best guess of what a 'tie' would look like and it's already wrong--as DeKalb election day turnout surpassed our estimate — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

They absolutely can (there's never a turnout one party can pull off that the other can't!), and I've been more bullish on GOP election day even as I've been more bullish on Dem early tallies — PolitiTweet.org