USTIN, Texas - Minutes after the networks announced that he had lost Florida, George W. Bush abruptly left the restaurant where he and his family and friends were eating dinner and returned to the governor's mansion to watch the election results with his parents and his wife.
His decision to skip his own election party - leaving behind his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush - prompted speculation that Bush was distressed by the early returns. But by 8:30 p.m., the Republican nominee was grinning again, defiantly challenging the first wave of poll numbers.
''I don't believe some of these results that they've called,'' he said.
Bush was right, at least in Florida, at least until the final counts were in. And as the election came down to the wire, creating an extraordinarily tense night for a man who once believed his ascension to the White House was inevitable, it seemed a fitting end to the closest and most unpredictable race in decades.
The first two hours of reporting seemed to favor Al Gore, as he won key states with large chunks of electoral votes. But just minutes after Bush voiced doubts about the Florida and Pennsylvania returns, the map began to turn in favor of the Texas governor. Television networks retracted Gore's Florida victory and gave Bush wins in West Virginia, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Missouri.
Bush had spent the final days of the campaign in Democratic territory, hoping especially to steal Gore's native Tennessee, as well as other Southern states that Clinton had swept in 1992 and 1996. The night before the election, he held an in-your-face rally in Clinton's home state of Arkansas.
The Bush strategy appeared last night to have paid off, as he won both Tennessee and Arkansas, according to the network projections.
''We were pleased to carry Tennessee,'' Bush said. ''I thought that was interesting.''
That he was not more exuberant about snatching those 11 electoral votes in a race where each vote mattered was just one of many signs that Bush was more anxious than he let on. The atmosphere was equally rocky inside campaign headquarters, aides said. Earlier in the night, Bush campaign aides appeared shell-shocked in television appearances as they insisted they could win without the big battleground states. Near midnight, however, they seemed to be controlling their giddiness, describing the mood as ''cautiously optimistic.''
Thousands of supporters gathered outside the Texas Capitol were far less cautious about their enthusiasm. Standing in the freezing rain, they cheered as each and every return - even the likes of Alaska and Utah - appeared on giant TV screens.
Bush had modeled his campaign after his bid for governor in 1994, focusing almost exclusively on a handful of issues while projecting an aura of affability his incumbent opponent lacked. At the presidential level, Bush made education, tax cuts, social security and the military among his top priorities, only dealing with Medicare and prescription drug coverage under pressure to win the senior citizen vote.
But at the core of the Bush campaign was personality. From the beginning, Bush cast himself as an antidote to the scandals of the Clinton presidency, vowing to ''restore honor and dignity'' to the White House at the end of almost every campaign speech.
Bush called that the ''character issue,'' but it was almost certainly an issue of disposition as well. And in the final minutes of the race, he exhibited the same self-assured friendliness that was a trademark of his campaign, joking with reporters even before he knew the end result.
Sitting in a living room at home alongside his father and mother, former President George Bush and Barbara Bush, the Texas governor appeared relaxed after the Midwestern polls closed, refusing to concede he was unnerved or surprised the race was so close at that hour. He also said his decision to skip the long-planned election party at the Austin Four Seasons had nothing to do with losing Florida, but with the 100 or so relatives and supporters who had gathered in a hotel suite.
''I wanted to watch the returns. And I wanted to watch them with my mother and dad and my wife,'' he said.
Bush denied he was even concerned about his future job.
''My whole future isn't on the line,'' he told a small pool of reporters invited to visit him for a few minutes. ''I'm not worried about getting through it.'' Gesturing to his parents, he added, ''I'm worried about getting them through it.''
Added his mother: ''We haven't been up this late in years.''
