Virginia easily broke its GOP record of 664,000 votes from 2000, and was nearing the 1 million mark. That would be four times the turnout in 2012's Republican primary.

But Democrats in the state were unlikely to touch their record set in 2008's contentious primary.

In Georgia, results were trickling in more slowly, but projections put theGOP there on pace to top the 900,000-vote record set in the 2012 Republican primary, when favorite son Newt Gingrich was in the race.

All told, about a dozen states held caucuses or primaries on Tuesday, but returns in the rest of them were too preliminary to make projections as of press time — though Tennessee and Texas were also on record paces in early returns.

"We have expanded the Republican Party," GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said at a post-election press conference Tuesday night. "There's much less enthusiasm for the Democrats."