The battle between Gov. Rick Scott and Charlie Crist was close to the very end, just as polls said it would be.
In the end, the Republican incumbent was re-elected to a second term over his Democratic opponent after a race filled with negative campaign attacks.
With 99 percent of the votes in, Scott had 48 percent of the vote, with Crist right behind him at 47 percent. Libertarian Adrian Wyllie received 4 percent.
Scott had held a 3 percentage point lead over Crist through most of the night.
In Duval County, with 99 percent of the vote in, Scott leads Crist by a 54-41 percent margin.
Outgoing House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, said "overwhelming statewide turnout" for the GOP appeared to propel Scott to a win.
"Republicans are out en masse, I think, to support the record that Rick Scott has achieved in Florida," said Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel.
Supporters at Scott's campaign party at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point in Bonita Springs --- not far from the Republican's Naples home --- were buoyant, with applause breaking out every time networks showed the incumbent leading the race.
Crist supporters were still not ready to concede about 10 p.m.
"It's a classic Florida election. It would not be a Florida election if we were not waiting on South Florida precincts to report," said Democratic consultant Steve Schale, a Crist adviser who a day earlier predicted the former governor would win by at least 100,000 votes.
But former state Sen. Steve Geller, a Broward County Democrat, wasn't optimistic after checking on numbers of uncounted votes in South Florida.
"The fat lady hasn't sung yet, but she's clearing her throat," Geller said.
The mood in the ballroom at the Vinoy Renaissance resort in St. Petersburg, where Crist held his election night event and where he and his wife Carole held their wedding reception in 2008, was somber. The Crists spent the evening in a hotel room accompanied by his campaign manager, Omar Khan.
Crist called the governor about 11 p.m. to congratulate him.
A Scott victory meant he held onto office in one of Florida's most bitter and personal governor's races. While the candidates traded the usual charges and countercharges of an election, the fight between Republican-turned-Democrat Crist and Scott seemed unusually intense.
Scott always addressed Crist by his first name in debates, and pro-Scott commercials slammed Crist as a "lousy governor."
Crist nailed Scott for the latter's conservative record, complaining in a book written before the election of everything from Scott's decision to reject federal support for high-speed rail to his removal of Crist's personal barber from a state board.
It was a scorched earth campaign that ended up being one of the most expensive in Florida history. Combined, the two candidates spent nearly $100 million on television ads, mostly blasting each other.
Crist's campaign banked on an intensive ground game, shepherded by staffers who helped Obama nail down victories in 2008 and 2012 in swing-state Florida, to reverse the typically lackluster Democratic turnout in mid-term elections like this year.
Crist enlisted Annette Taddeo, who was raised in Colombia and is a former county chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, as his running-mate with an eye on drumming up support from women and Hispanics, two demographics considered critical for a win in Florida.
And Crist also focused on black voters, who, like Hispanics, tend to vote in huge numbers during presidential elections and who played a large role in Obama's Florida victories in the past two elections but whose turnout drops off significantly in mid-terms.
But after a difficult first year that saw his approval ratings at near-historic lows, Scott tried to broaden his appeal. He focused on politically popular increases in education funding after slashing school spending in his first budget – and supporting a bill that grants in-state college tuition to some undocumented immigrants. He also touted the addition of more than 600,000 jobs to the state's workforce during his first term.
He used a vacancy in the lieutenant governor's office caused by the resignation of Jennifer Carroll to appoint Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a Republican who became Miami-Dade County property appraiser after leaving the House. Lopez-Cantera is the first Latino to hold the post in Florida's history.