Democratic venture capitalist Mark Warner was elected governor of Virginia on Tuesday, beating Republican former Attorney General Mark Earley in a race overshadowed by the Sept. 11 attacks. 
Warner, who billed himself as a fiscal conservative while spending a state record $18 million on his campaign, was leading by 52 percent to 47 percent, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, according to unofficial results. 
"You know, this campaign has been the longest job interview of my life. But now the people of Virginia have spoken. They said they want a new approach for our commonwealth, and tonight I'm here to tell you I'm ready for the challenge," he said. 
Warner, 46, who amassed a $200 million fortune in the cellular communications boom, will succeed Gov. Jim Gilmore, who was prohibited by term limits from seeking re-election. Gilmore's pledge to eliminate a state car tax led to a Republican sweep of the state's top elected offices in 1997. 
As chairman of the Republican National Committee, Gilmore was credited with helping Earley raise about a third of his $10 million war chest. But sparring between Gilmore and Republican legislators over cutting the car tax in the face of projected budget deficits gave Warner an opening early in the race. 
"I think the budget impasse really provided a rationale for (Warner's) candidacy," said Robert Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Warner said his experience as business person was the most appropriate way of rectifying the situation, and I think ultimately people believed him." 
Earley, 47, trailed in polls throughout the race and had difficulty energizing his conservative base in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that leveled a section of the Pentagon in northern Virginia and the World Trade Center's twin towers, pollsters said. 
President Bush endorsed Earley in a letter to Virginia voters and a taped telephone message but did not stump for the Republican during the campaign. Earley also picked up an endorsement in the final week from New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. 
"We have never retreated from the message of individual liberties, low taxes, limited government and world-class education," Earley said in a concession speech in Richmond. "That record, the record of (Republican governors) George Allen and Jim Gilmore, was a record on which I was proud to run and a record which history will record as a golden era." 
Warner's support of a proposed referendum to allow voters in traffic-clogged northern Virginia to decide whether to increase taxes to fund $900 million of his $2.3 billion transportation plan resonated in his home base. 
"He really appealed to the frustration that northern Virginians had with the direction of the state in the sense that northern Virginia's needs were not being attended to by Richmond," Holsworth said.