Warnock wins the week
Here's the graph which shows of the 1.85mm voters compared to the early vote we would have expected 29% black and +1% D-R and we ended up with just shy of 32% black and +6% D-R. All told it's a +30k day for Warnock and he should have ended early vote at +269k.
What's left? Well, there are just shy of 1.4mm 4 of 4 super voters who have yet to vote. If they all vote, and vote similar to election day by county, Walker would be able to close most of the gap. I have Warnock winning that final electorate by about +17k (would be about 50.3%).
If you estimate turnout based on early vote returns, you're looking at closer to 1.0mm on election day and Warnock winning by +130k (would be about 52%).
I think you can draw a straight line for Warnock margin, if the total vote is 2.9mm it's a pretty healthy Warnock win, as it gets bigger it's closer for Walker. At 3.3mm (which would be a really big election day) I believe anything above that probably starts to break back to Warnock, just looking at racial and partisan lean of the less frequent voters.
But, ultimately, Republicans have had an early vote turnout problem that I believe foreshadows an underwhelming election day. In total, early turnout hit 73% of it's general election total. Turnout was strong but led by Democrats outside metro Atlanta - 83% of Democrats came back vs 74% of Republicans in the other Georgia. The only real red flags outside of Atlanta for Democrats are low turnout in Bibb and Chatham County, but of course Republican turnout is even more atrocious there - not enough early voting spots? I don't know enough to say.
Head to metro Atlanta though and you'll see Democrats with equally strong 79% return rate while Republicans are only at 64%. So - are those just people waiting to turn out early? If so, why didn't their fellow R's in the rural counties wait? No, I think it's Republicans who held their nose in the first round and voted for Walker because of Senate control who can't bring themselves to come back out.
Consider the three types of Kemp voters in the state. We've talked about Warnock-Kemp voters, these are Romney-Biden former Republicans who may not call themselves Democrats yet but basically are. The never Trumpers. Then there's Walker-Kemp voters, who were probably more or equally motivated to vote for Walker as they were to vote for Kemp (or against Abrams). You'll find them in dried blood red parts of Georgia like Brantley County. And finally, the Kemp-Nose Holders. They voted for Walker for Senate control, but they don't like him. They probably agree with Lt. Gov Duncan - there's no good choice. But unlike him, they probably won't bother showing up to cast an undervote.
So where is Republican turnout kind of bad? Well, Cobb where R's came back at 71% vs 83% for Democrats, Cherokee where it was 56% vs 71%, Forsyth where it was 89% vs 76%. Get a little outside of north metro Atlanta and while the Democratic disparity is still there, it's just not as big, Whitfield 82/76, Fannin 71/64, these are much closer and could just be indicative of waiting for election day.
The amazing thing is that this outcome was foretold as early as the primary when Kemp rolled up a much bigger margin than Walker. But for whatever reason (candidate discipline or lack thereof, old way of thinking), the Walker campaign was run mostly like a majority of Georgians passionately care about Donald Trump being President again, or that trans sports is more important than education spending.
Tomorrow or Monday I'll talk a little about what to expect as the results roll in on Tuesday night so you don't lose your cool.