“The entire fate of the Republican Party for the foreseeable future will be cast in the next 48 hours,” predicted GOP strategist Bradley Blakeman on the eve of the Georgia Senate runoffs. “The Senate majority will be decided as well as the finality of the 2020 presidential election.”

For Republicans, it turned out to be a rough 48 hours. The party will soon find itself shut out of power in Washington, with the substantial exception of the courts, for the first time since early in Barack Obama’s first term a decade ago.