The narrow contest has brought the state numerous last-minute visits by both major candidates and their high-profile supporters: former New York mayors Rudolph W. Giuliani and Edward I. Koch for Mr. Bush; the rock star Jon Bon Jovi for Mr. Kerry.
Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III today implored Vice President Al Gore to follow the lead of two former Republican presidential candidates who swiftly conceded defeat after narrow contests marred by charges of fraud.
The Yankees charged the outnumbered rebels, but the rebels "gallantly met the onset, falling back slowly to a narrow lane, stubbornly contesting the ground," reported an unidentified Confederate in a pamphlet published during the war.
Mr. Nixon did not contest a narrow loss in that presidential election to John F. Kennedy.
Closing his party's conference in Brighton, Sir Menzies will accuse his main party rivals of contesting a narrow scrap of political ground on the centre-right.
The party leader Marine Le Pen is contesting a narrow defeat in the northern town of Henin Beaumont, with perhaps just 100 votes the difference between her and the Socialist candidate.
State Department officials said that Kerry invoked bitter memories of his 2004 presidential election defeat to George W. Bush, recalling how he decided against contesting a narrow defeat in the state of Ohio, which sealed the race for his rival.
But what had appeared to be a narrow victory in the first contest, the Iowa caucuses, was later determined to by a narrow loss to Mr Santorum.
Preliminary results indicate that Mr. Pataki easily won the Conservative race, where Mr. Golisano was only a write-in candidate, and that Mr. Golisano managed a narrow victory in the Independence contest.
