"Duke and I have a very big responsibility now to deliver for the people of Hawai'i," Lingle told her cheering supporters, running mate Duke Aiona by her side.

Fueled by solid voter turnout in Republican neighborhoods on O'ahu, Lingle held a narrow lead in second printout results. However, Lingle trailed her Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, on all of the Neighbor Islands, including Lingle's home turf of Maui.

The Lingle lead, slim throughout the night, broadened with the final tally: 193,609 (52 percent of the vote), to Hirono's 176,453.

For weeks, Lingle had predicted the election would make history as "the time the change finally came," and her lead in early returns suggested she would indeed break the 40 years of the Democrats' near-absolute lock on political power in Hawai'i.

However, early returns also suggested the state House and Senate will remain firmly in the Democrats' hands. The Republican Party was clearly failing in its bid to take control of the House, and looked as if they might lose some of the 19 seats they held going into this year's elections.

According to the 11:30 p.m. printout, voter turnout ran behind the record number of voters who participated in the 1998 election, but ahead of the particularly poor turnout in the 2000 election. A total of 378,700 voted, a turnout of 56 percent

Gov. Ben Cayetano said he hoped his party would work with his Republican successor.

"I think that any one who assumes this office will soon discover the realities of what faces the people of Hawai'i.

"I have read Linda's platform ," Cayetano added. "It will be interesting to see if she can deliver everything she has promised.

"We need to make the transition as smoootly as posible. If we don't people are the ones who lose."

Lingle emerged to a cheering crowd at her Honolulu headquarters at 9:30 p.m. after early returns showed her ahead by slightly more than one percentage point, and thanked her running mate, supporters and the people of Hawai'i.

"We just feel very humble to be in this position tonight, to be on the verge of perhaps being asked by the people of Hawai'i to lead our great state into the next generation."

Hirono conceded shortly before midnight, urging her supporters to "move forward" and "stay positive."

"This has been one hell of an election for all of us," she said.

In its simplest terms, the campaign pitted people who are basically comfortable with things as they are in Hawai'i against people who are angry with the "system," and are demanding that it change.

Lingle, who served as Maui mayor from 1990 to 1998, hammered on the change theme again and again, reminding voters the day before the election that "if I don't win, nothing will change in Hawai'i."

Lingle, 49, was elected Maui mayor at a time when about half of all Maui residents had lived there less than 10 years. Newcomers were an important part of her political base, and she knew how to appeal to them. Their votes helped her to defeat venerable political institutions such as Goro Hokama, an ILWU official who had served on the Maui County Council for decades.

As she did in 1998, Lingle focused this year on the failures of the state and the Democrats who have led it, running a campaign this year clearly tailored for people who are unhappy with the status quo.

She reminded voters of how bad the Hawai'i economy was throughout the 1990s, with poverty levels on the rise. She reminded them of the poor test scores and other weaknesses of the public school system. She reminded them of the criminal cases involving government officials in recent years, saying she would "restore trust in government."

Hirono countered Lingle's criticisms by insisting the schools and the economy are better than Lingle was making them out to be. She recruited teachers to wag their fingers at Lingle for being so negative about the school system, and Hirono pointed to Cayetano administration tax cuts and other accomplishments as proof that she had a hand in making the economy better.

Hirono, 55, a lawyer and a veteran state lawmaker, abandoned the governor's race late last year to instead run for mayor, a move many people viewed as an attempt by Hirono to avoid a gubernatorial primary with Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris.

Six months later, Hirono re-entered the governor's race after Harris announced he was quitting the contest. With Harris' departure Hirono immediately became the Democratic front-runner for governor, but she had little money or momentum.

In September, she barely defeated state Rep. Ed Case in a surprisingly close primary contest, but then had little money and a divided Democratic Party heading into the general election campaign against Lingle's well-oiled machine.

Both sides fielded hard-hitting campaign ads, with the Democrats using television spots to raise questions about Lingle's ethics and performance as Maui mayor.

The GOP took its own shots, using television advertising to remind voters of jailed or indicted Democratic politicians, the teachers' strike last year and state raids on the hurricane fund and the public workers' pension fund.

A key to Lingle's success was her long, long campaign, with Lingle essentially running for governor for five years ­ a year before the 1998 election and the four years since then.

During those years she rebuilt the state Republican Party, starting with grassroots meetings of supporters shortly after her narrow loss in 1998 to Gov. Ben Cayetano.

As she pulled new players into the GOP, Lingle also built an impressive system for raising money through mostly small contributions, which played a critical role this year.

The Democrats were clobbered by well-publicized investigations focusing mostly on the fundraising practices of Harris in his 2000 re-election campaign for mayor. Donors who gave too much money were fined and publicly embarrassed, prompting many traditional donors to Democrats to stop contributing.

Lingle, with her separate system for raising money, was suddenly in the enviable position of being able to raise millions of dollars while her Democratic opponents were starved for money. As of last week Lingle had raised $4.55 million, while Hirono had raised only $2.23 million.

By contrast, Cayetano raised about $5 million for his successful 1998 campaign.