Odds on Georgia Senate races correlate closely for Democrats, Republicans

Update: You can follow along with our liveblog of the Georgia Senate runoffs here.

With voters at the polls right now, the two Georgia Senate runoffs appear to be tightly correlated, with the chances of a split in the results seeming to increase a bit.

As of election day morning at Betfair, which is based in England and unavailable to customers based in the United States, they have the odds of the Democratic candidates — Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — both being victorious at +100, or exactly even money.

You can bet on Jon Ossoff alone at -110, with Warnock by himself at -200. In most polling, Warnock’s lead over incumbent Kelly Loeffler is a smidge more robust than Ossoff’s lead over Republican David Perdue. But the differences between these races are so slim that if just one in 300 voters (or less!) doesn’t vote a straight-party ticket, it could make the difference between a scoop for either the Democrats or Republicans or a split election.

So could a split in the vote happen tonight, making the tension in Georgia delegation meetings as awkward as a Fleetwood Mac reunion backstage? It’s possible. Right now at BetFair a Perdue-Warnock win, the most likely split scenario, pays +400 money. A more unlikely scenario has both Ossoff and Loeffler winning, paying +1600.

If bettors are to hit that wager, it comes down to ticket splitters or people that choose to vote in one race and not the other. But with the margins being so close (Joe Biden won by 11,779 votes over Donald Trump on November 3rd out of five million cast), anything is possible.

Right now it is +100 for Warnock and Ossoff to win both races, with +175 the price on both Perdue and Loeffler returning to the Senate in 2021.