Ga. Senate runoff live updates: Warnock celebrates win, Walker admits defeat

A top election official in Georgia’s secretary of state's office, Gabriel Sterling, said Tuesday on social media that Election Day voting was "running smoothly" and that, as of around noon local time, the average wait to vote statewide was down to one minute.

Sterling, the deputy interim secretary of state, wrote on Twitter that his office estimated more than 250,000 Georgians had cast their ballots that morning, calling the turnout "steady."

On Friday alone, the last day of early voting for the Senate runoff, 352,953 people cast ballots, according to state elections data -- bringing the total number of early votes, either in person or absentee, to more than 1.8 million -- shattering early in-person voting records for the state.

Republicans are hoping for a high Election Day turnout as data indicates that more Democrats got out the vote early.

-ABC News' Libby Cathey

ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Herschel Walker on Election Day about his rival questioning his character and competence -- and if he was confident that he could flip Sen. Raphael Warnock's seat.

"I'm not going to answer that," Walker said, repeating a version anytime he was presented with his opponent's name. "We're going out to win this election. So this election, I'm telling people to get out to vote."

"Hershel Walker is going to be your senator, and we're going to get things changed," Walker added.

When pressed further, Walker said, "The reason I'm not going to address that is because it doesn't need to be addressed ... Right now, I'll put my character against Raphael Warnock any day. Right now, I've done a lot of things."

Walker's strategy in the final stretch has been to link Warnock to President Joe Biden, labeling him a "rubber stamp" for Biden's agenda, a characterization Warnock has rejected.

"I am the 18th most bipartisan senator in the Senate. Period," Warnock told Scott on Monday. "Now I know that’s an inconvenient fact for Mr. Walker. We also know that he’s allergic to facts, even the facts about his own life."

-ABC News' Libby Cathey

Warnock is running in his fourth election in under two years as he fights for a full six-year term representing the battleground state.

Warnock is currently at the helm of as Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, which was famously led by Martin Luther King Jr. He has campaigned on a personal history steeped in religion and social justice.

He has also touted his current work during his short time in Congress, including some bipartisan priorities.

"I'm not a senator who used to be a pastor. You might as well know that you sent a pastor to the Senate," Warnock told canvassers in October.

In 2020, Warnock was accused by then-wife Ouleye of running over her foot amid their divorce proceedings.

Neither police nor medical professionals were able to find evidence to show that she was injured, and Warnock was not charged with any crimes. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of the claim: "It didn't happen."

Walker hopes to do what former Sen. Kelly Loeffler could not and defeat Warnock in a runoff election in Georgia.

Walker is a football legend in the state known for scoring touchdowns in the University of Georgia's 1980 championship season.

Now a businessman, he entered the Senate primary in August 2021 at the urging of former President Donald Trump, a longtime friend, whose swift support largely cleared the field.

"I'm here to win the seat for the Georgia people because the Georgia people need a winner," he said in October.

Both the November election and the runoff have seen Walker deny a series of allegations from women, including that he paid for their abortions, which he has said is not true. He is running as a staunchly anti-abortion candidate.

During the campaign, Walker's past also received new scrutiny, such as resurfaced reports about violence in his first marriage -- which he didn't contest -- amid what he said was a struggle with dissociative identity disorder.