he closest presidential race in decades remained undecided early today after the contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush narrowed to just a few hundred votes in the decisive state of Florida, which was expected to hold an automatic recount.
In the predawn drama, Gore early today called Bush to congratulate the Texas governor on winning the presidency after television networks declared Bush the victor. But when Bush's Florida lead shrank to the narrowest of margins, Gore called the governor back to retract the concession, an event unprecedented in American politics.
The vote was so close in the Sunshine State that there seemed no question the outcome was affected by Green Party nominee Ralph Nader, who drew more than 90,000 votes in Florida. Nader may also have affected the outcome in Wisconsin and Oregon, both states too close to call this morning.
The events underscored not only the deep ambivalence about this presidential choice within the American electorate, but also the fallibility of network projections. The television networks initially called Florida for Gore, then retracted. Then they called Florida for Bush and declared that he had won the presidency - and retracted the call once again. Newspapers, which rely on network projections, also were buffeted by the shifts.
By 4 a.m., when Gore was scheduled to deliver what was billed as a concession speech to a crowd of supporters in Nashville, the campaign met in the city's War Memorial and decided it had made a mistake. As the partisans chanted, ''Recount!'' Gore sent out campaign chairman William Daley to tell the crowd that the campaign was not over.
''Just an hour ago the TV networks called this race for Governor Bush,'' Daley said. ''It now appears their call was premature. There is a margin of only 1,200 votes. Under Florida state law, this triggers an automatic recount.''
As the partisan cheers erupted, Daley said: ''This race is simply too close to call. Our campaign continues!''
As the stunned Bush campaign watched the events unfold, it decided to counter with an equally short and carefully hedged declaration from chairman Don Evans.
''We hope and believe we have elected the next president of the United States,'' Evans told the crowd in Austin, Texas, which only an hour earlier had cheered deliriously at what it thought was a Bush victory. ''The latest count in Florida shows Governor Bush winning that state by more than 1,200 votes. They are still counting, and I am confident when all is said and done, we will prevail.''
That recount was expected to begin today, but it was not certain when it would end.
While analysts have been saying for weeks that the race would be close, the drama seemed to exceed even the imagination of the most creative screenwriter. It will all come down to the outcome in a state where Bush's younger brother, Jeb, is governor.
Nationwide, Gore early today inched ahead of Bush in the popular vote 47,123,818 to 47,063,088, with 96 percent of precincts reporting. The race may, in the end, be decided by fewer votes than the legendarily tight margin of 118,550 votes by which John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960.
But the race is determined by the electoral vote, and that was so close nationally that the winner in Florida would take the presidency. Among the possible permutations of this election is that the winner of the popular vote could lose the race to winner of the electoral vote. It takes 270 electoral votes to become president, with all but two states selecting electors on a winner-take-all basis.
The back-and-forth results, and the calls and retractions, all created an air of confusion that is bound to set off a new debate in the country about not just politics, but the very plumbing of American democracy. Questions are bound to be raised about the way votes are counted, the system of collecting absentee ballots, and the method of selecting a president with electoral votes instead of the popular vote.
Gore began the night with what seemed to be a best-case scenario for him, being declared the winner in three of the most important battlegrounds, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida, before that state was cast in doubt.
Gore was the apparent winner in Michigan largely on the strength of union support in that state, where United Auto Workers members were given the day off to vote. And Gore's apparent win in Pennsylvania was helped by the union vote and support among African-Americans. Gore also won Minnesota, Washington, and New Mexico.
Bush, meanwhile, picked up a swath of states in the South, including Gore's home state of Tennessee and President Clinton's home state of Arkansas. Bush also won his home state of Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, North Carolina, and much of the Plains and Mountain West.
The closeness of race was intensified by the retraction by television networks in the heat of the battle. After calling the crucial state of Florida for Gore, all of the major networks pulled back and said it was too close to call. Bush invited reporters into his hotel suite and said that he wasn't conceding Florida or Pennsylvania.
Bush, after talking on the telephone with Pennsylvania's governor, Thomas Ridge, told reporters: ''We are not conceding anything in Pennsylvania, nor are we conceding anything in Florida.''
Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani, speaking early this morning on CNN, said, ''It's is all the hands of whoever counts the votes in Florida.''
Gore media adviser Bob Shrum put it this way: ''I think we are going to win in the one of the great nail-biting elections in history.''
The nail-biting in the campaigns began as soon as the polls started closing, with television networks declining to call the race in some states that had been expected to go quickly for Bush. Bush and Gore, and even Clinton, worked the phones throughout the night wherever the polls remained open, exhorting supporters to vote.
Among the 11 percent of voters who made up their minds in the last three days, 52 percent supported Gore, 41 percent backed Bush, and 5 percent went for Nader, according to a national exit poll by Voters News Service, an organization of the Associated Press and the television networks ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox. The survey was based on exit interviews in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Gore won most of New England, taking Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont. In Maine, which is one of only two states to award its electoral votes on a proportional basis, Gore was projected to carry three of the four electoral votes. Bush won New Hampshire, a victory that governor was certain to savor given that his primary loss in the state last February to Senator John McCain of Arizona nearly derailed his presidential bid.
In Missouri, where Bush won, so many people lined up at some precincts that a local judge ruled that the polls should stay open in St. Louis beyond the normal closing time, but that decision was overturned after the first 45 minutes of extra voting. Missouri officials predicted a 67 percent voter turnout, far above the national average of 49 percent. The high turnout was partly due to heightened interest in the Senate race, in which the late governor, Mel Carnahan, a Democrat who died in a plane crash last month, remained on the ballot and was the apparent winner. Carnahan's wife, Jean, said she would accept an appointment to the Senate in her late husband's place.
The presidential candidates and their running mates, having campaigned through much of the night, awoke to fresh concerns yesterday that the smallest margin in the smallest state might make the biggest difference. Both Gore and Bush spent part of the day working the phones, doing interviews, and urging supporters to get to the polls.
Gore voted by quickly marking a ballot at Forks River Elementary School in Elmwood, Tenn., nestled in the Tennessee hills near his boyhood home of Carthage.
As befits his wonkish image, the vice president emerged from the voting booth and launched into a civics discussion with school studens who had watched him, his wife, Tipper, and three of their four children - Kristin, Sarah, and Albert III - cast their ballots. Eldest daughter Karenna Gore Schiff voted in New York.
In Austin, Bush, appearing calm on this day he had anticipated through 16 months of campaigning, read passages from the Bible yesterday morning, then cast a ballot for himself before retreating to a nearby hotel to wait for the results.
Bush said he had trouble sleeping the night before, staying in bed just four or five hours before getting up at 6 a.m. But he and his wife, Laura, seemed at ease as they prepared to vote at the Travis County Courthouse. Invoking a favorite metaphor, the Texas governor likened his effort to a long-distance race, saying he had kept his pace the best he could.
''A marathon runner has to be conditioned and focused,'' he said. ''I feel our campaign was a disciplined campaign focused on a message of what's best for America.''
Nader, aware that a strong showing in a handful of states could change the outcome of the race, urged people to ''vote their conscience.''
''Tomorrow, the Green Party will emerge as the third-largest party in the world,'' Nader said in Philadelphia before returning to his Washington home.
Across much of the country, the weather was fine for voting, but up to a foot of snow fell in New Mexico, slowing election workers and voters. Snow also blanketed parts of the Plains states. The turnout was relatively heavy in some key states, especially where there was combined interest in a close presidential contest and a US Senate race, such as Missouri and Michigan.
Tens of thousands of campaign volunteers, aided by the members of unions and interests groups, helped get voters to the polls.
Campaigns monitored the exit polls and rushed volunteers to key areas. Late yesterday, amid indications of a tight race in New Hampshire, Gore campaign chairman William Daley called Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and asked Kennedy for help in the Granite State. Kennedy promptly dispatched 180 of his volunteers to New Hampshire.
Glen Johnson of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
