Thad wrote:News outlets have called it for Warnock; latest info I'm seeing is that they haven't called the other race yet but Ossoff is up and I wouldn't expect too many people to vote split-ticket under the circumstances (though it's possible Perdue gets enough of an incumbent advantage to make the difference while Loeffler, as an appointee, doesn't get that bump).
It's not super difficult for me to imagine a Republican voter thinking Loeffler is a nutcase, so they voted Perdue/Warnock because a Loeffler win was unnecessary for GOP Senate control. It wouldn't have to be that common a strategy to produce the discrepancy, which is a couple-ten-thousand votes out of 4.5 million cast.
I don't know who the fuck the Republican nominee's going to be in 2024. I'd say Trump's the frontrunner at this point but I'm not convinced he still will be in four years. Or that he'll actually run. If not him, it's hard to say. Options for the "second-place last time" and "former VP" patterns would be Cruz and Pence, respectively, but both of them are candidates who are popular with evangelicals and not other demographics. 2024 could be another weird primary season.
It'll probably be Trump if he's not in NY State Prison by then. He won't be able to resist running, and no one within the GOP will be able to actually campaign against him unless and until there's a Khruschev Secret Speech and RW media gets on board with it.
