Georgia early voting: How big turnout could affect the Senate runoff count

CNN’s Ethan Cohen and Caroline Tounget looked at where the lead changed as the presidential votes in the state were counted during those 10 days:

At 7:16 p.m. on Election Night, when the first significant votes were reported, Biden jumped out to an early lead with almost 62% of the vote. Only 2% of the estimated vote had been reported.

The lead bounced back and forth for the next hour, but Trump pulled ahead at 8:07 p.m., with 10% reporting.

Early Wednesday morning Biden began to gain on Trump and finally overtook him at 4:48am on Friday, November 6, according to the vote count.

Biden ultimately won by a little less than 12,000 votes.

Actually, it was 11,779. Trump’s got that number burned on his brain since he specifically asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in their phone call this past weekend to “find” one more — 11,780 votes — just enough to win him the election.

“If you’re a Georgia voter, if you want your values reflected by your elected officials, I strongly beg and encourage you: Go vote tomorrow. Do not let anybody discourage you. Do not self-suppress your own vote. Do not make a self-fulfilling prophecy out of doing this. Don’t let anybody steal your vote that way,” Sterling said. “That’s what’s happening if you self-suppress: You are taking away your important voice from this election.”

So much rests on the outcomes in Georgia

“A sweep by Democrats would open the door to more powerful fiscal stimulus that the shaky economy may very well need. But it would also raise the risk of corporate tax hikes that investors despise.”

Biden’s ability to govern. His ability to get the people he wants in his Cabinet and in other key roles is entirely up to the Senate. One reason we don’t yet know his pick to be attorney general has got to be that Biden doesn’t know if it’s a Republican or Democratic majority who will be voting to confirm.

Congressional oversight and Biden. A Democratic majority will mean much less combative oversight, at least to start the Biden administration. It would also make Republican efforts to attack him over his son’s previous business dealings — Trump’s top offensive in 2020 — more difficult.

About that phone call

Since it became clear that Trump lost the election, he has been actively and openly trying to get state officials to ignore election results, a plan that was almost too brazen and anti-democratic to be believed.

What’s worse than openly trying to get around election results is quietly asking state officials to change them and “find” new votes two months after the election you lost. What Trump does behind closed doors, it turns out, is worse than what he does in the open.

He has no interest in hearing anybody else talk. Despite the best efforts of Raffensperger, who was respectful of Trump but firm in dismissing his theories, the President dominated the conversation, and all but threatened Raffensperger and his deputy.

He learned nothing from impeachment. For those senators who defended Trump and said he’d learned his lesson and would no longer use his office to pressure people for political favors, this must be a bitter pill. That a year after he was fighting impeachment, Trump would pressure a state official for votes is proof the tiger does not shed its stripes.

Imagine all the calls we’ll never hear about and the pressure put on less scrupulous officials than those in Georgia.

Trump’s first punishment will come January 20, when he has to move out of the White House.