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

In the final days of his Senate campaign, Walker declined to respond when asked on the trail about claims from an alleged former ex-girlfriend that he had a history of pathological lying, manipulation and violence.

On Thursday, during his first event following a report from The Daily Beast that included an interview with the woman, Cheryl Parsa, Walker delivered a standard stump speech without taking any questions from reporters.

After the rally, campaign staffers told ABC News they were not engaging with the Daily Beast story, contending that it was not gaining traction and that they were focused on winning the election.

On Sunday, NBC News aired an interview with Parsa, who has claimed Walker physically assaulted her during a five-year relationship. Parsa reiterated to NBC News an account she gave the Daily Beast about when Walker allegedly became violent, attacking her in 2005.

At a campaign event after the broadcast, the campaign again declined to comment.

Walker has previously denied accounts from other women that he paid for their abortions. He is running as a staunchly anti-abortion candidate.

"Democrats will say and do anything to hang on to power. Well, I'm Herschel Walker, and they picked the wrong Georgian to mess with. I'm not backing down the stakes are too high," Walker said in a statement in October.

Years before he ran for the Senate, while promoting a memoir about having dissociative identity disorder, he did not deny an account from ex-wife Cindy Grossman that he became violent during their marriage.

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."