Live coverage of odds and results for 2022 Georgia Senate runoff election

Update 9:36 p.m. It’s all over but the final margin.

Update 9:05 p.m. It’s not quite over, but it’s close. The smaller counties in both the north and south of the state are all reporting at over 95%, but with Atlanta’s Fulton County at 55%, and the ATL Metro’s Cobb at 54%, and DeKalb at 43%, there’s a lot more Warnock vote to come. And with the total vote within 3,000 according to the NYT with over 2.6 million cast, as soon as the 404 area code fully reports Warnock is looking very good to retain his seat.

Warnock sits at .98 at PolyMarket, .96 at PredictIt, and 99.01% at Smarkets.

Update 8:24 p.m. The numbers are starting to tilt back, and the outperform by the blue team seems to be continuing. Warnock won Atlanta’s Fulton County 74%-25% on November 8 with about 410,000 total votes cast, but he’s at 82%-18% with 56% of the ballots counted. It’s likely he finishes below that number and below the 80% threshold as the day-of vote is counted, but those margins make up for scores of smaller rural counties that might break the other way.

The odds markets agree: Warnock sits at .97 on PredictIt, 99.01 at Smarkets, and .98 at PolyMarket.

The better thing to bet on tonight might be when the networks, AP, and Dave Wasserman on Twitter (who tends to be ahead of the extremely-extremely safe network decision desks) will be calling the race over.

Update 8:01 p.m. You’d still much rather be Warnock than Walker, but as the rural vote comes in it seems the polarity in Georgia is even more extreme between urban and rural than it was on November 8. Walker in rural counties is starting to outperform his previous numbers.

A good example is rural Towns County in North Georgia. Walker won 78%-19% in November, but is at 80%-20% with more day-of vote still being counted. But the problem is Towns County only casts about 7,000 total votes, and is that enough to make up for Warnock outperforming so far in the Atlanta Metro area?

So there are signs of life for the former UGA running back, who is at .11 at Predict, while Warnock has fallen to .90.

Update 7:35 p.m. We might be in for a short night here. At Smarkets, Warnock has moved to 98.04% to win, while PredictIt has valued up him to .95 in early trading. The NYT has 30% of the vote in with a 55.1-45.9 margin for the incumbent, and as counties come in Warnock seems to be outperforming in both blue and red counties.

We knew the early vote would favor Warnock, but with the number being so big, Walker is going to quite simply need massive day-of turnout to keep this thing close.

Update 7:09 p.m. Let’s not get carried away with Warnock holding a 76-24% results so far on some early returns we’re seeing on NBC and other networks, as that’s a lot of early vote from Fulton County (Atlanta) and plenty of other metropolitan areas. Also keep in mind that as in most states, in the Peach State you can expect much higher in-person, day-of-election numbers to favor Republicans.

But the early returns have moved the market, as at PredictIt Warnock has already moved up to .94, with Walker falling to .07.

Update 7:00 p.m. The polls are now closed in Georgia! The final polling results from FiveThirtyEight.com have Warnock ahead by 1.9% over Walker, but we’ll see how things shake out tonight.

The Senate will remain in the hands of Democrats come January of next year, but plenty is still on the line in the upper chamber of the United States Congress as the last seat is to be decided Tuesday night in Georgia.

Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock is the favorite over Republican Herschel Walker, and here we’ll be tracking all the numbers tonight as they come in from across the Peach State. We’ll also be using the betting odds markets to determine how they are moving to the vote counts as they come in this evening.

A 51-49 Senate for Democrats means they can have an extra seat on all committees, which will help the more progressive party move federal judges faster through the Judiciary Committee process. They also won’t need Vice President Kamala Harris to be hanging out in the DMV all the time waiting to break ties on issues, which she’s needed to do 26 times in her first two years in office.

The polls close at 7 p.m. ET in Georgia, and we’ll be live-blogging the results as they come through, but at 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday, December 6, here are the betting market prices for the race:

PredictIt: Warnock .92, Walker .10
PolyMarket: Warnock .93, Walker .07
Smarkets: Warnock .95, Walker .05