NO CONCESSION FROM GILLESPIE IN TIGHT RACE

Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., is maintaining a lead of about 12,000 votes over Republican challenger Ed Gillespie Wednesday morning with all but three precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press.

Here's the AP's count as of 6:19 a.m.

2,554 of 2,557 precincts - 99 percent

Warner, 1,072,487 - 49 percent

Gillespie, 1,060,337 - 48 percent

Robert Sarvis, Libertarian, 53,594 - 2 percent

Democrats claimed victory late Tuesday but Gillespie has not conceded in the race that was closer than expected.

The AP's count shows the three unreported precincts are in Albemarle, Franklin and Rockingham counties.

(This has been a breaking news update. This morning's story from The Richmond Times-Dispatch is posted below.)

ARLINGTON — Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., on Tuesday night clung to a slim lead in Virginia’s cliffhanger election for the U.S. Senate, a surprisingly tight contest with Republican Ed Gillespie.

Warner did not declare victory when he took the stage at 11:45 p.m., at his Election Night party in Arlington County’s Crystal City, but his colleague, Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., declared the race over.

“The results are in and we won,” Kaine said. “It was a close election, but hey, that’s what you get when you live in a battleground state, right?”

Warner led by nearly 13,000 votes with all but 12 precincts reporting. Ten of those precincts were in Craig County, which has a population of just more than 5,000 people.

Warner, seeking a second six-year term, was trying to hold off a charge by the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, a first-time candidate whose campaign was significantly outspent and received comparatively little help from outside groups.

Libertarian Robert C. Sarvis lagged the two front-runners.

Warner took the stage at his victory party accompanied by Kaine and Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

“Thank you, Virginia,” Warner said. “It was a hard-fought race; it went a little longer than we thought. But I am so grateful to so many people. I also want to congratulate Ed Gillespie. I wish him well and he’ll stay involved in Virginia and national politics.”

“The thing we are seeing across the country is people are tired of politics as usual. At the end of the day they want to hire people who want to work across party lines,” Warner said.

Gillespie addressed supporters in Springfield just before midnight and stopped short of conceding.

“I’m going to ask everyone to get a good night’s rest. We have waged a very vigorous campaign. We’ll have a better sense I think a little bit later on tomorrow,” he said.

“We are going to accept whatever is the final outcome, but I owe it to the voters of Virginia, I owe it to all of you to make sure the decision is final.”

Dan Palazzolo, a professor of political science at the University of Richmond, said that “the results, either way, add further evidence of intense two-party competition in Virginia.”

“Voter turnout matters greatly. Too many Democrats stayed home, which is as much a reflection on Warner than Obama. He has lost 15 percent of his vote share from 2008.”

Gillespie led in the returns for much of the night, with Warner pulling ahead late. The Warner party, at the DoubleTree hotel in Crystal City, erupted in cheers at 9:43 p.m. when CNN reported that the Democrat had pulled to a tie with the Republican.

By 11 p.m., as Warner slowly continued to pull ahead of Gillespie, the crowd of several hundred at the party became more relaxed, cheering the few Democratic victories shown on CNN. People started high-fiving each other, hoping that Warner’s lead might be big enough to pull him out of recount territory.

At Gillespie’s election night party in Springfield, a few hundred supporters sipped beer and wine while watching for results on screens tuned to Fox News in a ballroom at the Embassy Suites hotel.

Cheers went up as races were called for other Republicans around the country. The crowd, which intermittently chanted, “Go, Ed, go,” saw Gillespie’s lead grow for most of the evening, swelling at one point to an 80,000-vote cushion that wouldn’t evaporate until after more than 95 percent of precincts had reported about 10:30 p.m.

Jerry Rich, 65, of Fairfax said he remained optimistic even after late results showed the race shifting in Warner’s favor.

“We’ve still got a chance,” Rich said. “If it was a blowout, I’d have already gone home.”

Warner, a wealthy telecommunications entrepreneur from Northern Virginia who served as Virginia’s governor from 2002 to 2006, was trying to keep both of Virginia’s Senate seats in Democratic hands.

With the power balance in the Senate tilting toward a Republican majority, a win would give Warner a potential opening to increase his national profile, political experts said.

“Warner has said he wants to make common cause with some Republicans on major national issues, and now he may have the chance, assuming the GOP is interested in collaborating,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Tuesday night’s result was no repeat of 2008, when Warner crushed former Gov. Jim Gilmore, a Republican, 65 percent to 34 percent, carrying all but four counties in the state.

On Tuesday, Gillespie carried Chesterfield County and ran strong in two key populous Northern Virginia suburbs, Prince William and Loudoun counties.

Outside groups spent just $2.8 million in the Warner-Gillespie race, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in Virginia politics. More than $1.9 million of the outside spending was to support Warner or oppose Gillespie. Nearly $842,000 was spent to back Gillespie or oppose Warner.

In Virginia’s 2012 U.S. Senate contest between Kaine and Republican George Allen, outside groups poured $53 million into the race, more “independent expenditures” than in any other Senate contest in the country.

Gillespie has been a GOP strategist, a lobbyist and an adviser to President George W. Bush. He attempted to define Warner as a Democrat marching in lockstep with his party who has voted with President Barack Obama “97 percent of the time,” most notably for the Affordable Care Act.

But Gillespie waited until three weeks before the election to unveil a replacement plan that would give a tax credit to everyone who buys health insurance in the individual market, and other market-oriented measures.

Warner, by contrast, had proposed changes to Obamacare as early as March, including legislation that would provide consumers with a lower-cost health coverage option and that would set up a process to allow coverage plans to be offered regionally and across state lines.

Less than a month before the election, Warner faced a sudden headwind because of his role in the scandal surrounding former state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, D-Russell.

Puckett abruptly resigned from the legislature in June at a critical time in the fight over the state budget and Medicaid expansion. Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, head of the state tobacco commission, said he discussed a potential staff position with Puckett. The state senator said he resigned chiefly so that he would not impede the chance for his daughter, Martha Ketron, to win legislative approval for a full-time position as a juvenile court judgeship.

Warner had to fight back allegations that he had discussed the prospect of a federal judgeship for Puckett’s daughter during a phone conversation with her brother in June. Gillespie suggested that Warner had “played politics with a federal judgeship.”