(CNN) In 25 days, voters in 34 states will head to the polls to choose their next US senators.
But because of a quirk in Georgia election law, it might be early December before we know which party will control the Senate in 2023.
Georgia, as you might remember from the 2020 election, has a rule that says that if no candidate wins 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff.
In the 2020 cycle, that runoff election didn't take place until January 2021. If there is a runoff this time around, it would be held four weeks after the general election, on December 6.
And looking at polling in the race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, there looks to be a very real possibility that neither candidate winds up the winner on November 8.
Surveys conducted over the last month have generally shown Warnock with a slight lead over Walker. The latest polls among likely voters from Fox News and Marist show Warnock below the 50% mark, while those from Quinnipiac University and CBS News/YouGov put him just above that threshold.
Complicating the math is the presence of Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver. In Marist's September poll, Oliver took 4%, compared to 47% for Warnock and 45% for Walker. (Another 4% were undecided.)
And Oliver is reveling in his role as potential spoiler. "If a run-off occurs, that means there's enough of the population that feels like both of the major party candidates or the top two candidates haven't been as responsive as they need to be," Oliver told Bloomberg recently. "It's a lesson to them."
Consider what the political world could look like if the Georgia Senate race went to a runoff.
At the moment, Democrats look slightly favored to win one Republican-held seat in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is running against Dr. Mehmet Oz. And conversely, Republicans feel good about their chances of flipping the Nevada Senate seat, where Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is facing former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
That could create a scenario where Georgia, once again, holds the key to control of the Senate majority. A month-long spending spree would commence, with every national group you can think of rushing into the state to try to influence the outcome. According to CNN's David Wright, about $233.4 million has been spent on ads in the Georgia Senate race, making it the most expensive contest of the midterms so far.
The Point: A runoff looks like a very real possibility in Georgia. And it's not hard to imagine the results of that runoff determining Senate control. AGAIN. What a world.