In the weeks leading up to November 4, we were often asked what the inevitable runoff in the Louisiana Senate race would look like. Our answer was that regardless of what happened nationally on Election Day, the December 6 runoff between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and GOP U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy would be a whole new race. Whatever had transpired in the months leading up to November 4 wouldn’t matter as much on November 5. We weren’t wrong. In fact, a race that has been in the Toss Up column since March now moves to Lean Republican.

Of course, all this speculation envisioned a myriad of potential scenarios: that the runoff would determine the majority in the Senate and would suck all the oxygen out of the political atmosphere for a solid month, or that Democrats had retained their majority so it wouldn’t matter much. Another scenario is the one that has come to pass: that Republicans would have won the majority and this would be an effort to add yet another seat to their ranks. What we didn’t expect

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