It’s interesting that Nate Silver changed his mind while writing his analysis of the Georgia runoff elections. Before he started, he thought he’d be concluding that the Republicans, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, are slight favorites. In the end, however, he couldn’t give either side an edge and wrote that a split-decision must be considered a strong possibility.

In his opinion, Raphael Warnock is more likely to win than Jon Ossoff.

There is new polling out today which probably wasn’t part of Silver’s calculations. The JMC Analytics poll shows that Warnock is stronger, while the Trafalgar poll show Ossoff in an almost imperceptibly better position.

JMC Analytics

  • Jon Ossoff (D) 50%, David Perdue (R) 43%
  • Raphael Warnock (D) 53%, Kelly Loeffler (R) 44%

Trafalgar Group

  • Ossoff 50%, Perdue 48%
  • Warnock 50%, Loeffler 49%

Both of these polling outfits have a strong right-wing predictive bias, and Trafalgar has a C-minus rating with FiveThirtyEight which is the equivalent of saying their surveys are hot garbage. In this case, however, they’re predicting Democratic victories in both races.

Maybe their game is to scare Republican voters out of their complacency.

For me, that’s the best way to interpret these results. As projections, they’re worthless, but the GOP must be worried if their polling allies think the best tactic right now is to advertise that they’re losing.