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

Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, said Tuesday night as vote counting continued that while the race remained close, he expected outstanding ballots from Atlanta and suburban counties to favor Warnock.

"I would anticipate that you'll see Sen. Warnock widen his lead, which if that is the case, I think it's an incredible indictment against the Republican Party in Georgia because we'll have lost three Senate races within two years in a state where Joe Biden currently has a negative 18 approval rating," Short told "ABC News Live Prime" anchor Linsey Davis.

"I think it is an unfortunate circumstance for Republicans if it does unfold the way I anticipate it will over the last 24% of the vote," Short added.

Pressed on whether there should be a party "reckoning" over candidate quality -- an issue that plagued the GOP this cycle despite polling showing voters disproving of Democrats over inflation and crime - Short told Davis: "I think that reckoning is already happening, it began with the midterm results a month ago."

Watch more from Short's appearance on ABC News Live below.

ABC News Political Director Rick Klein, with 75% of the expected vote in, commented Tuesday night on the race between Warnock and Walker.

"A month ago they ran and it was settled by less than a percentage point, and this is tracking more like a 1- or 2-point race as opposed to a 3-point or 4-point race," Klein said on "ABC News Live Prime."

"This is looking very close despite some indications there might be a chance for Raphael Warnock to really open up a larger margin," Klein added.

Walker and Warnock have been trading leads as votes continue to be counted. Klein attributed the "seesawing" to early voting leaning Democratic, while rural counties lean Republican. Vote tallies are now starting to come in from Atlanta and the surrounding suburban areas, where Warnock is winning by a large margin.

"Because we have so much vote left outside the Atlanta area, the Warnock campaign has to feel a little bit better about its chances," Klein said.

More analysis can be watched below.

FiveThirtyEight's Geoffrey Skelley gives this initial analysis in their live blog of the ongoing results: Checking in on the trends in the 32 counties where at least 95% of the vote has reported, it’s not good enough so far for Walker to overtake Warnock. So far, Warnock is doing 0.6 points better across the total vote from those places. Now, we’re a long way from knowing where things end up because those counties only made up about 6% of the November vote. But we’re starting to get enough data points to make Warnock at least a slight favorite at this point.

Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state's office, said in a news conference on Tuesday evening that it looked like Georgia had 1.4 million people cast their votes on Election Day.

"This was the most in-person voting we've had since the launch of the new system," Sterling said. "It looks like we probably beat the Election Day vote of November 2022, which was the highest. And we know it was more than November 2020, and it was more than the runoff in 2021."

"We have record turnout across the board," Sterling added. "We had record turnout for a runoff in a midterm. We had record turnout for early voting. We had a record use of absentee ballots. This system in place allows voters ease of use, their choice of freestyle voting and essentially, on Election Day, no lines."

Before Tuesday, nearly 1.9 million Georgians had already voted early or cast an absentee ballot last week.