Sometime this morning Ossoff declared victory over Perdue, although I don’t believe any major media organizations have yet called the race for Ossoff. His lead has not appreciably changed in the last several hours, and still sits a little below the 0.5% recount threshold, but there is still some vote to be counted and I’ve seen speculation that his margin will eventually exceed that threshold.

As we speak Congress is debating an objection raised to the electoral college votes of Arizona (alphabetically the first of the ‘swing states’). Current headlines from the New York Times include:

• “Pence rejects Trump’s pressure to block certification saying he ‘loves the Constitution.'”
• “Parts of Capitol Hill are evacuated as protesters flood the grounds.”
• “McConnell speaks out forcefully against push to overturn election.”

Trump addressed supporters in front of the White House, saying “we will never give up, we will never concede,” and referring to Biden as an “illegitimate” president.

There is new reporting today that Biden will name Merrick Garland as his Attorney General, which is a fascinating choice. Garland, of course, was famously nominated by Obama in 2016 to fill Scalia’s Supreme Court seat, and was supposed to be an easily-confirmable nominee, but the McConnell-controlled Senate never gave him a hearing and after Trump’s victory the seat went to Gorsuch. Now that Biden believes the Democrats will control the Senate, he can pluck the 68-year-old Garland off of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, install him in his Cabinet, and then get somebody younger and/or less moderate nominated to the D.C. Circuit in Garland’s place — somebody like 50-year-old Ketanji Jackson Brown, who might eventually be Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee. Whereas, if McConnell still controlled the Senate, he might have sought to block Biden from filling Garland’s seat, making a Garland Cabinet appointment less appealing.