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

ABC News on Tuesday spoke to Kirk Watkins, a voter in Buckhead, an upscale neighborhood in Atlanta where Republican Herschel Walker underperformed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in November. Watkins said he split his ticket during the general election to cast his ballot for Kemp but also for Warnock instead of Walker.

"He's a joke," Watkins said of why he didn’t support Walker. "Well, he's yet to make a statement that makes any sense. He has no policies and he's hand-selected by Trump for no particular reason. Just because.”

Kemp earned his support because he "did the right thing" by standing up to Trump's false claims about the 2020 election, Watkins said.

Other Republican voters said on Election Day they were rallying behind Walker but weren't too confident he can seal the deal. Some worried a rainy, cold day could hurt GOP turnout.

Voter Danny Alea in Marietta, part of Cobb County in metro Atlanta where Walker also underperformed Kemp, said he’s voting for Walker only because he is the only option against Warnock.

"Well, he's the only Republican choice left standing and there's just no way I can vote for Warnock," Alea said. He called his vote for Walker an "easy choice" and insisted the country is going "backwards" under Democrats.

-ABC News' Rachel Scott

Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state's office, predicted on social media that Election Day turnout will “exceed 1 million.”

That would be on top of the nearly 1.9 million people who’ve already voted early or cast an absentee ballot. Georgia shattered records for early voting turnout in the runoff between Warnock and Walker.

As of Tuesday morning, Sterling wrote on Twitter that 250,000 people had already gone to the polls to vote that day. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

At an Election Day canvass launch in the metro Atlanta suburb Norcross, Sen. Warnock told supporters not to get deterred by the light rain and to show up big at the polls.

"We're not leaving anything to chance which is why we're standing out here getting sprinkled and baptized. We're leaving it all on the field. But I got a feeling that the people of Georgia are gonna get this right and we're gonna get this done one more time," Warnock said to cheers.

Still, he told supporters not to "rest on our laurels," arguing there was still a pathway to victory for Walker.

"More of our voters tend to vote during the early period. And more of [Walker's] voters tend to vote on Election Day. So if you haven't voted, by all means vote," Warnock said. "And if you've already voted, your job still isn't done until everybody in your circle [votes]."

Warnock said he wasn't thinking about the Senate majority heading into election night.

"I know folks are doing all the other calculations and that's fine. But this really is about who's going to represent Georgia," he said.

Asked about his reaction to Walker's comments that he will "put my character up against Raphael Warnock any day," Warnock told ABC News, "My opponent says many things. You can't believe any of it."

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.