Georgia Senate elections live updates: Jon Ossoff projected to win Ga. Senate seat

Georgia voters set a new record in Tuesday's runoff elections, with more than 4.4 million voters participating in the dual races.

The surge in turnout so far -- with votes still to be tallied -- wallops previous records for a runoff and also surpasses the total turnout for the 2016 general election. 

Between the two races, turnout is nearly identical, according to the most recent data from the secretary of state’s office: 4,406,279 in the Loeffler/Warnock race and 4,406,181 in the Perdue/Ossoff race. The figures cap off two highly competitive contests in the emerging battleground state, and although Republicans were considered the favorites -- particularly given Democrats' poor showings in runoff elections historically in the state -- an engaged electorate helped deliver at least one projected win for Democrats so far. 

Before Tuesday, turnout was already record-shattering, with 3,093,375 voters casting their ballots early (1,018,381 by mail and 2,074,994 early in-person), according to Georgia Votes. The previous record of 2.14 million was set in 2008.

The total early vote also included at least 123,079 who did not participate in November's general election, when nearly 5 million votes were tallied.

-ABC News’ Kendall Karson

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT, suggested that Trump’s rhetoric might have stopped Republicans from winning Georgia’s Senate runoff contests. ABC News has projected a Warnock victory but has not yet projected Ossoff as the winner -- though he has garnered a significant lead.

"It turns out that telling the voters that the election is rigged is not a great way to turn out your voters," Romney told reporters Wednesday morning. 

Romney brushed off questions about his flight to Washington, D.C., Tuesday night, where video shows him being heckled by possible Trump supporters.  

"That's something I've gotten used to over the years,” Romney said. “That's the nature of politics today.” 

-ABC News’ Allie Pecorin

Ossoff declared victory Wednesday morning in his race against Perdue.

While ABC News has not yet projected the race, Ossoff has garnered a significant lead overnight and his margin is now nearly 5,000 votes greater than President-elect Joe Biden's was over President Donald Trump in November.

"It is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate," Ossoff said in video statement. "Thank you for the confidence and trust that you have placed in me."

Ossoff, as he has throughout his campaign, lamented the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and stressed the importance of the country getting a grip over the deadly virus.

"I will work in the U.S. Senate to support a robust public health response so that we can defeat this virus, putting Georgia's own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the lead, trusting medical expertise, doctors, and scientists to bring the tools to bear, the technology to bear, the ingenuity to bear, and the resources to bear necessary to stop the spread of this virus to defeat it and to get our daily lives back -- and to rush direct economic relief to people who need help right now," he said.

Despite the bitter race with Perdue, Ossoff promised to be a senator for all Georgians.

"I want to thank the people of Georgia for participating in this election, everybody who cast your ballot, everybody who put your faith and confidence in our democracy's capacity to deliver the representation that we deserve, whether you were for me, or against me, I'll be for you in the U.S. Senate," he said. "I will serve all the people of the state," he said. "I will give everything I've got to ensuring that Georgia's interests are represented in the U.S. Senate."

Warnock called his projected victory a "historic moment," saying he "can't wait" to be in the upper chamber of Congress "to represent the concerns of ordinary people."

"I'm deeply honored that the people of Georgia decided to place their faith in me and have decided to send me to represent their interests in Washington, D.C.," Warnock told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Wednesday on "Good Morning America."

"Certainly, this is a historic moment and I'm just deeply grateful to be a vessel in a moment in which we're facing such large problems in our country," he added, "and I can't wait to get to the U.S. Senate to represent the concerns of ordinary people."

Warnock, a senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the former pulpit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is the first Black senator Georgia has elected and only the 11th Black senator elected in U.S. history.

"Georgia is in such an incredible place when you think about the arc of our history, we are sending an African-American pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church where Martin Luther King Jr. served," he said. "This is the reversal of the old southern strategy that sought to divide people. In this moment we've got to bring people together in order to do the hard work and I look forward to doing that."

When asked about his top priority for this year in the Senate, Warnock said -- as he has throughout his campaign -- that the country needs to get the coronavirus pandemic under control.

"Like so many Americans, as we witnessed the incredible death toll over 350,000 Americans lost lives, lost livelihoods, we need a national strategy that takes this virus seriously, that gets the vaccine distributed safely and efficiently," he said. "We've got to re-open our economy, get our kids safely back to school and we got to make sure that people know that they will have their health care, particularly in the middle of a pandemic."

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan