FORSYTH COUNTY — Election Day provided little drama in Forsyth County, where voters overwhelming backed Republican candidates for state office, as well U.S. House and Senate.

They also approved a transportation bond referendum, which will fund $200 million in road projects.

Turnout for the election was about 53 percent, with 57,126 of Forsyth’s 108,531 registered voters casting ballots.

“I’m sure we’ll be one of the highest [voter turnouts] in the state ... we usually are,” said Barbara Luth, Forsyth’s supervisor of voter registrations and elections.

About 40 percent of those who voted did so prior to Tuesday, according to Luth.

Advance voting remained popular, with 22,848 taking part. Mail-in voting was also a success, with 1,593 ballots, or about 84 percent of those sent out, returned.

“[Of the 53 percent] we had 1.53 percent vote by mail, 21.05 percent were advance in person and 30.5 [percent] was in the polling place,” Luth said. “We had a lot of people advance vote, and we normally do have that in this county.”

Luth was pleased with the turnout, but still hoped that it would have been even higher.

“I always wish it would be higher, but I said about 50 percent and for once they outdid me,” she said.

No Democrats qualified to run for local office in Forsyth County this year, so the contests for county commission, board of education and other offices were decided in the Republican primary earlier this year.

The same held true for the local seats in the Georgia Legislature.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal of Gainesville will serve a second term after overcoming a challenge from Democrat Jason Carter, a state senator from Atlanta and grandson of former President Jimmy Carter.

Unofficial returns tabulated by The Associated Press showed Deal with a commanding lead over Carter.

Libertarian Andrew Hunt, the former CEO of an Atlanta nanotechnology firm, also was on the ballot.

Deal earned 79 percent of the votes in Forsyth County.

Deal told reporters just before polls closed that he was confident in a full-stop victory while touring the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, where Georgia Republicans plan to watch vote totals come in.

"We all knew this was going to be a difficult election year," Deal said. "The demographics of our state have changed and are continuing to change. We have to adjust to that, but I think we had a message, hopefully we had a message people of this state accepted and understood."

Businessman David Perdue kept Georgia’s open U.S. Senate seat in GOP hands, beating his Democratic challenger on the strength of white voters in the reliably Republican state.

Democrats hoped Michelle Nunn, the daughter of a popular champion of bipartisanship, former Sen. Sam Nunn, would enable them to pick up a seat in an otherwise dismal midterm election.

But Perdue overcame repeated attacks on his business record by arguing that Nunn would be would be a rubber stamp for President Barack Obama.

“I think Georgia made it loud and clear tonight that we are going to stop the failed policies of President Obama and Sen. Harry Reid,” Perdue said in his victory speech. Earlier in the day, he said “people who really love America” would decide the election.

Perdue won 55 percent of the vote to 43 percent for Nunn with 93 percent of precincts reporting.

Perdue took 80 percent of the vote in Forsyth County.

Exit polling showed Nunn won more than half the female vote and the overwhelming majority of black votes, while Perdue won about 70 percent of white votes.

“We have reminded people of what a two-party system looks like,’” Nunn said while conceding defeat.

Republican Casey Cagle from neighboring Hall County won re-election as the state’s lieutenant governor by a wide margin, and will again lead the state Senate as one of Deal’s top legislative leaders.

Cagle defeated one of his former Senate colleagues, Connie Stokes of Decatur, earning 60 percent of the vote.

He received 85 percent of the vote in Forsyth County.

Cagle has held Georgia’s second-highest state office since he was first elected in 2006. The lieutenant governor serves as presiding officer of the state Senate.

Cagle raised a daunting $2.5 million to fund his re-election campaign, which paid for slick commercials scattered amid the warring ads in the more high profile races for U.S. Senate and governor.

Stokes, who raised less than $87,000 as of Sept. 30, was among a record five black women who ran for statewide office in Georgia this year.

“We’re extremely excited to have won by the margin that we did,” Cagle said when reached by telephone at the GOP victory party in Atlanta.

The Associated Press and FCN regional staff contributed to this report.