Today’s the day — with any luck — we’ll finally see the end of the 2020 midterms. The FiveThirtyEight nerds say that Warnock has a slight lead, but Walker could still win. To me, that there are people bright enough to dress themselves and eat with a fork who will still vote for Walker is what’s wrong with America.
For example, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed a voter who said he was voting for Walker because he was afraid the Democrats would regulate cryptocurrency.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: One complication of the race today is that there was a libertarian candidate for the Senate seat in the November 8 election who ran a very distant third. But because this was a ranked choice vote, whoever those voters listed as their second choice will get those votes today. That seems weird, especially since those same voters are eligible to vote in today’s election. I question whether that’s accurate. But it is worrisome. Libertarians would probably have picked Walker over Warnock.
Awhile back I noted that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, still headed by Rick Scott, was sending out fund raising appeals ostensibly to elect Herschel Walker, but only one cent of every dollar donated was actually going to Herschel Walker’s campaign. Now the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Burgess Owens are doing something similar.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Burgess Owens are raising money on behalf of Herschel Walker ahead of Tuesday’s Senate runoff election against Democrat Sen. Rafael Warnock, warning the Georgia Republican could be the final bulwark against President Joe Biden’s agenda. It is not immediately apparent to donors that half of the money they contribute will go to Walker’s campaign, while Lee or Owens keeps the other half.
Well, at least half the money being raised for Walker is going to Walker. That’s better than what the NRSC was doing. But Mediaite is reporting that lots of people in the GOP are pulling this same trick — sending out fundraising appeals for Walker but keeping a chunk of the donations for their own campaign committees or PACs. Names dropped include Donald Trump, J.D Vance, and Ted Budd. Meanwhile, money raised to re-elect Raphael Warnock is all going to Raphael Warnock.
I have never heard of Georgia having ranked choice voting. If that were the case Warnock would have won outright in November since he was already so close to 50%. I've also never heard of ranked choice voting either creating a runoff, though it is possible, and certainly not having those votes held over to be applied in a runoff.
it seems that ranked voting was only for ballots mailed from abroad.
Meanwhile, money raised to re-elect Raphael Warnock is all going to Raphael Warnock.
Nothing of the level of using Walker, but perhaps an overly confident statement that would require some deep research to verify.
Oh, don't start. You must be new here if you haven't noticed I tend to research things to death. In this case it accounts for Warnock's significant cash advantage over Walker, and also some news stories have pointed this out, but I don't have time to look them up now.
The thing about those libertarian bros, if they're halfway true to principle, is they will take over look at that ballot and stay home.
Herschel is toast. With over a million votes cast he is losing by almost ten percent. They haven't called it yet, but I will. That's pretty bold as an error here would be hard to live down. That is still not big enough as he has no concept of the office and the skills one needs to do it with competence IMO. If there is common sense, then about 45% of the Georgia voters in the state don't have it.
We can all breathe a sigh of relief as at least in Georgia it appears sanity has prevailed.
This is also the end of the midterms which means the DOJ is under no constraints re the indictment of the former guy. Written policy prohibits taking legal actions within 90 days of an election that could affect the outcome. Violating that policy may have put Trump in office. (That was James Comey and a nothingburger report about emails on a laptop but just before the election.)
IDK when the DOJ will charge Trump – I'm fairly confident they will. But the clock doesn't start running until tomorrow. BTW, last week is when the DOJ got a favorable ruling from the 11th Circuit, so only recently have they had reason for confidence that they would be able to use any of the documents in a trial.
The reason this is important is intent. That Top Secret files were found in the same drawer as Trump's passports indicates Trump was personally aware. (I'm not sure exactly what was in the drawer with the passports but the classified stuff was mingled with Trump's personal stuff and that's potentially critical.)
Wow this one may take some time and be close. I am looking for good recipe for crow.
It might come in handy.
It's been called for Warnock. No crow for you.
It wasn't supposed to be that close but a win is a win.
Ranked choice is Alaska and Maine's instant runoff method. Georgia uses this second runoff among the top two finishers, and people who voted for the also-rans can vote for one of the survivors or stay home.
There's an instructive essay in A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper on how first-past-the-post (plurality wins), ranked choice, top two run off, and weighted ranked choice yield different results.