Live updates: Stacey Abrams concedes to Kemp, see Muscogee Co. vote totals in GA election

Follow along here for live updates from the Georgia midterm elections, including vote totals from the Columbus area and across the Peach State on key races and local ballot initiatives.

Here’s the latest:

AP: Stacey Abrams concedes

Stacey Abrams, Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, has called Republican incumbent Brian Kemp to concede in the midterm election, the Kemp campaign told the Associated Press about 11 p.m.

Abrams has not yet addressed. a crowd of her supporters in Atlanta.

With 84% of votes counted, Kemp had 51.4% of votes to Abrams’ 45.2%.

Supporters at the Abrams watch party praised her campaign and Abrams as a person.

“It’s very rare that you meet genuinely good people in this work and she’s one of them,” Audrey Maloof told the Ledger-Enquirer.

Unofficial vote totals released in Muscogee County

While it’s looking like the Republican candidates will take two of the largest races in Georgia, voters in Muscogee County voted overwhelmingly Democrat.

Here’s who came out on top in Muscogee, according to unofficial vote totals released by election officials.

• Governor: Stacey Abrams (D)
• Lieutenant Governor: Charlie Bailey (D)
• Senate: Raphael Warnock (D)
• Secretary of State: Bee Nguyen (D)
• Attorney General: Jen Jordan (D)
• House District 2: Sandord Bishop (D)

Overall in Georgia, Kemp is leading Abrams and Walker is leading Warnock at 11:15 p.m.

Live election results

See vote totals in the governor’s race, Senate race and the House District 2 race between Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop and Republican Chris West. The results will start showing up after polls close in Georgia.

Below are updates from earlier Tuesday:

Abrams almost four points behind Kemp

Stacey Abrams is behind Gov. Brian Kemp with more than 50% of votes counted. The gap between Kemp and Abrams is wider than the gap between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, as expected. At her watch party in Atlanta, supporters remained in good spirits.

“This means a lot not only to the BIPOC community but to the youth and generations that’s coming up after her,” Dasan Onyx Frazier, 22, said. “To show you can come from somewhere like Spellman College, being a Morehouse grad myself, to see any of the HBCU family step in and make it happen like this is amazing. She knows the community is behind her.” — Kelby Hutchison

Kemp surges ahead of Stacey Abrams

After Democrats had the lead early on in the night, incumbent Brian Kemp, a Republican, surged ahead of Stacey Abrams in the race for Georgia governor.

In the Senate race, incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock was narrowly leading Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Warnock had about 1.06 million votes to Walker’s 1.03 million.

Sanford Bishop(D) and Chris West(R) were neck and neck in the U.S. House District 2 race.

Issue at Columbus precinct

The Carver precinct inside the Columbus Public Library had trouble with a machine not printing tape, an election official confirmed. The situation has been resolved.

Polls are closed in Georgia unless you’re already in line

Polls closed in the Georgia Midterm election at 7 p.m., but don’t leave if you’re in line. You’re guaranteed your chance to vote if you’re there by 7 p.m. Polling places will stay open until every vote has been cast.

To find your polling place, check here.

Early voting totals are usually available within an hour of polls closing, although recent elections have taken longer for early votes to be reported. Millions of residents participated in early voting for the midterms.

Absentee ballots

The Board of Elections has been sequestered since 1 p.m. Tuesday and will stay sequestered until polls close to work on absentee ballots.

As of 8 p.m. Tuesday, about 5,200 absentee ballots were recorded in Muscogee County.

Columbus native on statewide ballot

A native son of the Columbus area is on the statewide ballot again. Charlie Bailey, who grew up outside of Pine Mountain and attended Harris County schools before graduating from UGA, was the Democratic nominee for Georgia attorney general in 2018.

Although he lost in the general election, he came mighty close to defeating the Republican incumbent, Chris Carr, who nipped him by 51.3% to 48.7%.

Four years later, Bailey won another Democratic nomination for state office: lieutenant general. This time, his Republican opponent, Burt Jones, isn’t an incumbent because Geoff Duncan didn’t run for reelection. Bailey, a former senior assistant district attorney in Fulton County, is a lawyer with the Atlanta firm Cook & Connelly.

With 6% of the statewide precincts reporting at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Bailey leads Jones 53% to 46%.

All eyes on governor, Senate races in Georgia

One of the key races in the Georgia midterms is the gubernatorial rematch between Democrat Stacy Abrams and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

Several polls project Kemp to secure a second term, including Fox 5 in Atlanta and Five Thirty Eight.

Kemp, then the Secretary of State, won against Abrams by about 55,000 votes in 2018, but a diversifying electorate and increasingly close statewide margins have upped the stakes four years later, Georgia Public Broadcasting reported.

Abrams has long focused on her plan to repair Georgia’s health care systems in both urban and rural areas. Kemp, endorsed by Republican heavyweights, has tied Abrams to Democratic President Joe Biden in his campaign messaging.

In a March campaign stop in Columbus, Abrams promised to expand Medicaid and veto any anti-LGBTQ legislation if she’s elected governor.

Warnock’s final plea in Columbus

The U.S. Senate race between incumbent Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and Trump-backed Republican challenger Herschel Walker is expected to be a close race.

Walker was ahead one percentage point in Five Thirty Eight’s Tuesday poll.

The Republican has faced controversial campaign trail. A Ledger-Enquirer investigation earlier this year uncovered that Walker and a business partner failed to repay $625,000 in loans used to fund a pizza franchise.

Warnock, who was elected to the United States Senate in the January 5, 2021, special election runoff, was in Columbus Monday to encourage residents to vote at a rally at Abundant Life Full Gospel Outreach Church.

Georgia critical in determining balance of power

More evidence that Georgia is among the states most critical to this election determining the balance of power in Congress: volunteers from Alabama, Maryland and New York were in Columbus to knock on doors and encourage folks to vote, according to Monday night’s Facebook post by the Muscogee County Democratic Committee.

Tuesday morning, the committee followed up its expression of gratitude for the out-of-state help with a message for the hometown audience. “Muscogee County Dems, we have 3 more packets to canvass,” the post says. “Don’t let New York, Maryland and Alabama volunteers do it alone.”

Republican campaign signs altered in Columbus

Alton Russell, chairman of the Muscogee County Republican Party, posted Monday afternoon a photo of two defaced campaign signs, one for U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker and one for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

Russell called the act “destructive, pure hate and vandalism,” adding that it was “so sad to see this happening in Columbus, Georgia.”

Columbus ballot initiatives

Along with statewide races, residents also voted on a number of ballot initiatives to make amendments to the City of Columbus Charter during Tuesday’s election. The Ledger-Enquirer will update this story with results as they come in.

This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 4:06 PM.