After hours of anticipation, and a shrinking lead, Rick Scott announced that, however narrow the margin, he will be the winner of the gubernatorial contest.

As the last voters make their way to voting booths Tuesday, a Sunshine State News Poll of the previously tick-tight gubernatorial race shows Rick Scott leading Alex Sink in pull-away fashion, 49-45 among likely voters, and 50-44 among those with an “excellent” chance of voting.

With a flurry of new polls showing the gubernatorial race extremely close, state CFO and Democratic candidate Alex Sink and Republican nominee businessman Rick Scott crossed the state Monday, beating the drums to rally their supporters to the polls.

Thanks to the 2000 presidential election debacle -- most of it centered here in Florida -- both major parties have amassed a storehouse of legal firepower. As voters head to the polls Tuesday, judicial decisions and the mere presence of lawyers have already affected some midterm elections across the country.

Spurred by a neck-and-neck race that has them smelling the governor’s office, Democrats had their best two-month fund-raising period ever, making the electoral money race with the Florida Republican Party mirror the contest between Rick Scott and Alex Sink: pretty much tied.

Gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, at a tea party event Saturday, led a parade of Republican and conservative candidates -- including a possible 2012 presidential hopeful -- in making one last pitch to conservative Floridians to get out the vote on Election Day.

As the clock continues to count down toward the end of the election, candidates crossed Florida at a maddening pace on Friday trying to get supporters out to the polls.

U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, the Republican candidate running to be the state’s next commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, unveiled backing from prominent Florida Democrats on Thursday while his Democratic rival Scott Maddox continued launching attacks.