Bush, Gore in Dead Heat

George W. Bush and Al Gore battled to a near-draw Tuesday night, leaving their epic presidential fight undecided pending a tally of outstanding votes that could take days.

As of early this morning, the fight for the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the White House was too close to call. One state--Florida--is destined to decide who becomes the nation’s 43rd president. Similarly close was the nationwide popular vote.

In a bizarre sequence of events, Gore even appeared poised to concede the election to Bush early today. The vice president placed a call to Bush congratulating him on what seemed a victory after some television networks called Florida for the Texas governor. But as the networks retracted that prediction--their second such reversal of the night--Gore phoned Bush to retract his earlier call.

Shortly after 1 a.m. PST today, Gore’s campaign chairman, Bill Daley, addressed a throng of supporters in downtown Nashville. He drew a thunderous ovation when he declared the network projections “premature” and declared, “Vice President Gore and Sen. [Joseph I.] Lieberman are fully prepared to concede and support Gov. Bush if and when he is officially elected. But this race is simply to close to call .... Our campaign continues.”

About 20 minutes later, Bush’s campaign chairman, Donald L. Evans, came out to briefly address Bush supporters in soggy Austin, Texas. “We hope and believe we have elected the next president of the United States,” Evans said to lusty cheers. “I’m confident when it’s all said and done, we will prevail.”

By apparently drawing support from Gore in a number of key states--including Florida--the Green Party’s Ralph Nader was threatening to become the spoiler that Democrats dreaded. In Florida, Nader polled close to 100,000 votes, far more than the edge of a few hundred votes Bush enjoyed in the state’s early-morning results.

In the state-by-state tally, Democrat Gore carried New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, most of New England and the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan, pushing him past 240 electoral votes, even as he was losing his home state of Tennessee. Gore also was headed to an easy win in California and victory in Washington state.

Republican Bush swept most of the South--including his home state of Texas and President Clinton’s Arkansas--much of the Mountain West and also won hard-fought Missouri and Ohio, pushing him past 240 electoral votes as well.

But in Florida, the biggest of the tossup states with 25 potentially decisive electoral votes, the two men were running neck and neck with most of the votes counted. The narrow margin seems certain to trigger a recount, according to state election officials. But the officials could not say how long a recount could take.

Also up for grabs as of early today were Wisconsin and Oregon state, with a total of 18 electoral votes.

With its astonishing finish, the 2000 presidential campaign actually managed to surpass its pre-election hype. The race proved the tightest contest since 1960 and will go down as one of the closest in the nation’s history.

If Bush ends up the winner, he would become only the second son to follow his father to the White House. The younger Bush would share that distinction with John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams. Bush’s father, George Herbert Walker Bush, served as president from 1989 to 1993.

A victory by Gore, the son of the late Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Sr., would fulfill a quest envisioned by his parents practically before he was born. The younger Gore first sought the presidency in 1988.

Gore Doesn’t Stop Campaigning

With the race so taut, Gore continued campaigning relentlessly Tuesday night, even after polls closed in the East and Midwest. Manning the phones from his hotel suite in Nashville, he joined his wife, Tipper, and Lieberman in calling radio stations in several states where ballots were still being cast.

Early in the evening, when several television networks called the vote in Florida, Michigan and Illinois for the vice president, “cheers went up around the room” in the Gores’ suite, press secretary Douglas Hattaway said. The group took a brief dinner break, he said, then “got back on the phones.”

But later, Florida came to symbolize the night’s cliffhanging quality when the media outlets moved the state back into the too-close-to-call column.

In Bush’s hometown of Austin, the chilly and wet election night had the suspense of a movie thriller. Several hundred people gathered outside the Texas Capitol, their mood falling and rising with projections--and corrections of those projections--by the TV networks.

Bush himself had an abrupt change of plans dictated by the changing forecasts. Originally, he intended to gather with family, friends and other invited guests to watch the returns at the Four Seasons Hotel. Instead, Bush and family members, including his parents, retired to the library of the Governor’s Mansion to watch the returns in private.

“I’m going to wait until they count all the votes,” he told reporters allowed in for a visit. “I think Americans ought to wait until they count all the votes.”

A short time later, when the TV networks skinned back their Florida projection, jubilation rippled through the crowd outside the Capitol. “We thought it was a little early to call Florida,” said a jubilant Melissa Legrand, whose hands touched her face in happy surprise. The crowd then burst into a verse of “America the Beautiful.”

A parallel scene of hope and anxiety was playing out on the streets of downtown Nashville, Gore’s home base. The vice president became the first presidential candidate to lose his home state since George S. McGovern in 1972.

Early in the evening, people milled around the closed-off streets, carrying signs and joyfully slapping campaign stickers on each other.

However, the mood was subdued as news spread that Florida was still too close to call. “What’s up with that state?” shouted one woman as she walked down the street.

Candi King, 41, puffed anxiously on a cigarette and pronounced herself “worried and scared.”

“I thought for sure [Gore] had Florida,” she said. “I don’t know how he’s going to do without it.”

King’s friend, Tish Owen, 49, echoed her sentiments. “It feels like a big roller coaster,” Owen said. “But it ain’t over till it’s over.”

A Perfect Yet Maddening Match

The close results capped one of the most tumultuous and defiantly unpredictable presidential campaigns in decades, one that repeatedly shredded expectations.

Bush and Gore were both prohibitive front-runners in their respective parties. But neither followed the straight and true path to the nominations that once seemed all but inevitable. And once they faced off, their complementary strengths and weaknesses left the two nominees almost perfectly matched.

Shadowed by the scandals of the Clinton presidency, Gore never realized the full advantage of a strong economy and the benefits that normally accrue in good times for the incumbent party.

New to the national stage, Bush committed a series of gaffes that kept him from breaking open a race he sometimes threatened to run away with.

When it came to personal qualities, Gore’s perceived edge in knowledge and experience was offset in the minds of many voters by Bush’s greater likability and believability.

Gore seemed a shoo-in as the Democratic nominee from the moment he and President Clinton won reelection in 1996. Bush, the son of the 41st president, emerged as the favorite for the GOP nomination after his landslide election to a second term as Texas governor in 1998.

Once the campaign began in earnest in early 1999, however, it was Bush who had the easier time rallying his party establishment, support that would later prove crucial when Sen. John McCain of Arizona waged an unexpectedly strong primary fight.

Bush’s surname, his residence outside the Washington Beltway and his Texas-size bankroll all made him the consensus candidate among the nation’s corps of Republican governors, giving him a nearly impregnable base of support within a party desperate to reclaim the White House after eight years.

He distanced himself from his fractious party brethren in control of Congress by touting his “compassionate conservative” philosophy and venturing into black and Latino neighborhoods where Republican candidates are rarely seen. He raised more money than anybody in the history of the presidential primaries--$90 million--and his weighty wallet alone seemed to ensure his nomination.

But there were stumbles along the way that raised questions about Bush’s readiness for the White House, and they lingered throughout the fall campaign. He flubbed a television pop quiz on the names of foreign leaders and turned in a series of lackluster debate performances against his GOP opponents.

His campaign suffered a severe jolt in New Hampshire, where McCain handed him a 19 percentage-point shellacking. Bush recovered to beat McCain 18 days later in South Carolina, though the price was a sudden and dramatic shift to the right that plagued Bush the rest of the campaign. McCain rallied for a key win in Michigan, but ultimately collapsed beneath the weight of Bush’s overwhelming financial and institutional support.

Gore also hit surprise bumps on his expected glide to the Democratic nomination, though he ended up dispatching his opponent, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, with relative ease once the voting started.

Gore initially chose to ignore Bradley. But the former pro basketball star stunned the vice president in the summer of 1999 when he reported raising almost as much money as Gore--an unprecedented feat for a challenger.

Alarmed, Gore abruptly moved his campaign headquarters from Washington to Nashville. He also began the first of a series of personality and wardrobe changes that would beat back the Bradley challenge but stick Gore with a chameleon image that would trail him for the remainder of the campaign.

Once Gore focused on Bradley, he outperformed him in a series of debates, rallied the party base and won the crucial Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. Bradley eventually quit the race without winning a single contest.

At that point, Gore enjoyed a brief period ahead of Bush in national polls, benefiting from the Texas governor’s struggle to finish off McCain. But Bush seized the initiative throughout much of the spring as he rolled out proposals on issues not usually associated with the GOP, such as health care, housing and Social Security reform.

A turning point came in the summer when each man chose his vice presidential running mate. Bush picked former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, whose long Washington resume brought gravitas to the GOP ticket but little political benefit.

Gore made a bold move by selecting Lieberman, defying his image as a conventional and calculating politician.

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Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Michael Finnegan, Megan Garvey and Matea Gold contributed to this story.