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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.
Top headlines:
Loeffler insists she has a path to victory
While trailing her opponent by roughly 35,000 votes, Loeffler delivered remarks in the early hours of Wednesday morning projecting confidence in her race and insisting she still had a path to victory.
"This is a game of inches. We're going to win this election," Loeffler told a crowd of supporters in Buckhead.
"I'm not going to stop working. In the morning, in fact, I'm going to be heading to Washington, D.C., to keep fighting. We're going to keep fighting for this president," Loeffler said, teasing the counting of the Electoral College vote in Congress on Wednesday, which nearly a dozen GOP senators plan to object to.
Her opponent, Warnock, began speaking moments after she finished. Warnock and Ossoff did not hold large watch parties due to COVID-19 concerns.
DeKalb County returns boost Dems
While Loeffler and Perdue have carried the lead in the Senate races for most of the night, with the bulk of votes in DeKalb County coming in, Warnock is leading Loeffler statewide, and Ossoff is close behind Perdue.
In DeKalb County, a Democratic stronghold where a massive amount of votes came in, Ossoff currently leads 82.5% to Perdue’s 17.5%. Warnock leads 83.2% to Loeffler’s 16.8%.
"Now you may be asking why is Warnock not doing much better than Ossoff?" said ABC News Chief National Affairs Correspondent Tom Llamas. "If you essentially come out and you look at all the counties that surround Atlanta, Warnock is over-performing Ossoff by about 2,000 votes so far in each of those counties."
According to the secretary of state’s website hosting the unofficial election results, there were at least 1,231,662 votes cast on Tuesday that have been counted so far -- a high turnout for runoff elections.
-ABC News' Meg Cunningham, Kendall Karson and Quinn Scanlan
Stacey Abrams tweets encouraging note to Dems as Warnock takes leads
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and founder of Fair Fight, sent an encouraging tweet to supporters moments after Warnock took the lead over Loeffler in his Senate race with 95% of the expected vote reporting in.
“With new votes joining the tally, we are on a strong path. But even while we wait for more, let’s celebrate the extraordinary organizers, volunteers, canvassers & tireless groups that haven’t stopped going since Nov. Across our state, we roared. A few miles to go...but well done!” Abrams tweeted.
Gabriel Sterling, the state voting system implementation manager, said at an earlier election update that the largest portion of remaining uncounted votes was out of DeKalb County, a heavily Democratic suburban Atlanta area.
Election official says biggest tranche of uncounted votes from Dem county
Gabriel Sterling, the state voting system implementation manager, said in an evening election update that the largest portion of remaining uncounted votes is from DeKalb County, a heavily Democratic suburban Atlanta area.
"The biggest tranche of votes that exists out there in a single bucket right now still looks to be the advanced voting in DeKalb County," Sterling said.
With 80% of the expected vote reporting in, GOP candidates Perdue and Loeffler are leading their races by small margins.
Sterling said from the press conference in Atlanta that he wasn't aware of any issues that could delay the reporting but added, "It can be like seesaw for the rest of the evening."
Sterling said 64 of the state's 159 counties have completed reporting all votes.
-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan
Obama says ‘John Lewis is surely smiling down’ after Warnock's projected win
Former President Barack Obama in a statement Wednesday congratulated Warnock on his historic projected win in Georgia.
“My friend John Lewis is surely smiling down on his beloved Georgia this morning, as people across the state carried forward the baton that he and so many others passed down to them,” Obama wrote.
He also lauded the "resilient, visionary leadership" of Stacey Abrams and added that, “Democrats in Georgia and across the country should feel good today.”
“Georgia’s first Black senator will make the chamber more reflective of our country as a whole and open the door for a Congress that can forego gridlock for gridlock’s sake to focus instead on the many crises facing our nation -- pandemic relief for struggling families, voting rights, protecting our planet, and more,” Obama wrote.
He implored Americans to remain engaged in civic life.
“If we want to protect the gains we’ve made, achieve even more progress in the years to come, and reinforce the foundations of self-governance on which our country rests, there’s no better path to follow than the one forged by the determined, organized, and confidently hopeful people of Georgia,” Obama wrote.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson