LIVE UPDATES

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

The projected win cements Democrats' control of the Senate.

ABC News projected early Wednesday that Rev. Raphael Warnock will win the race against Kelly Loeffler and on Wednesday afternoon that Jon Ossoff is projected to defeat David Perdue. Together, the two projected wins hand Democrats control of the Senate.

For live updates on the vote totals, click here.


0

Warnock's lead now too big for Loeffler to request recount

Warnock's edge over Loeffler continued to grow Wednesday morning and is now too big for the incumbent Republican senator to request a recount.

Warnock currently leads by 53,430 votes, which is a margin of 1.2% of all votes cast in the race.

ABC News projected just before 2 a.m. ET that Warnock will win.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan


Ossoff's edge over Perdue grows to more than 16,000 votes

Ossoff's edge over Perdue has grown significantly, with votes coming in from the Democratic stronghold of DeKalb County. But that margin is still within recount territory.

With 98% of the expected vote reporting, Ossoff leads with 50.2% -- 2,208,717 ballots -- while Perdue trails behind with 49.8% -- 2,192,347 ballots.

Ossoff's lead of 16,370 votes is now greater than that of President-elect Joe Biden's over President Donald Trump in Georgia (11,779 votes).

The margin is currently 0.4%, and if it remains less than 0.5%, Perdue would be entitled to request a machine recount after the results are certified.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan


Perdue campaign says race is 'exceptionally close'

Perdue's campaign team released a statement early Wednesday, saying the race is "exceptionally close" but that they believe the incumbent Republican senator "will be victorious."

"As we've said repeatedly over the last several weeks and as recently as this evening, this is an exceptionally close election that will require time and transparency to be certain the results are fair and accurate and the voices of Georgians are heard," the Perdue campaign said. "We will mobilize every available resource and exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted. We believe in the end, Senator Perdue will be victorious."

The race between Perdue and his Democratic challenger, Ossoff, is too close to call as votes are still being tallied.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan


Ossoff campaign releases statement projecting confidence

Ossoff’s campaign manager, Ellen Foster, released a statement early Wednesday saying that when all the votes are counted, their team "fully" expects Ossoff will win his Senate runoff against Perdue.

"The outstanding vote is squarely in parts of the state where Jon’s performance has been dominant," Foster said. "We look forward to seeing the process through in the coming hours and moving ahead so Jon can start fighting for all Georgians in the U.S. Senate."

If Democrats win both Senate seats in Georgia, each party will have 50 senators, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be the tie-breaking vote for Democrats in the Senate.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan


Biden 'optimistic' about runoffs in Georgia

President-elect Joe Biden said that he feels "optimistic" about Tuesday's pivotal runoff elections in Georgia during an interview on V103 with Kenny Burns, a local Atlanta radio host.

"I'm doing really well, feeling really optimistic about today," Biden told Burns.

Asked what specific policies he expects to come before the Senate this year that make it so critical for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock to win, Biden cited both the need to get $2,000 payments to struggling Americans and harshly criticized the federal government’s vaccine distribution plan at length, saying Congress needs to be able to provide support to get the vaccine out to all Americans.

"Right now, for example in Georgia, you have only about 75,000 people who have gotten the vaccination, yet you got about a half a million doses of that vaccine in the state. There's no planning. The federal government has done virtually no planning. It's one thing to get a vaccination -- to get to get the actual vial -- sent to you in a frozen pack. It's another thing to get it into a needle and the vaccination into somebody’s arm," Biden said.

"So I'm gonna need [Congress'] help in making sure that we establish thousands of federally-run and federally-supported community vaccination centers of various sizes across the country. Located in high school gyms or NFL football stadiums," Biden said, adding that the vaccination project has to involve multiple levels of the government including FEMA and the under his administration vaccines will be free.

"The inability of the president and the Republican leadership, and Trump in particular, preventing that from being made available to the states is just -- it's just almost criminal in my view. And people are dying,” Biden later added.

The president-elect once again hammered Georgia’s two Republican senators and candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, saying they’ve forgotten who they have been elected to represent.

"Look here's the thing that's happening. Because of the Republican senators of Georgia, their loyalty is to Trump, not to the people of Georgia. I mean, when I got sworn into the Senate I didn't swear allegiance to the president, whether it was a Democrat or Republican. I'm not going to have any senators swear allegiance to me. It's to the Constitution and to the state of Georgia, that's who you represent," Biden said.

-ABC News' John Verhovek, Beatrice Peterson and Molly Nagle