WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — John Burris, the heavily favored state House majority leader, narrowly beat retired judge Bill Lee in Delaware's GOP gubernatorial primary by 44 votes, according to preliminary totals Saturday.
Lee, who had conducted a grass-roots campaign and got his name on the ballot to the surprise of party leaders, refused to concede.
"It's clear to me that there's going to be a recount," Lee told The Associated Press late Saturday.
The Delaware Department of Elections reported Burris had 13,887 votes to Lee's 13,843. The tiny Middle Atlantic state has nearly 169,000 registered Republicans.
The Republican winner will face Democratic Lt. Gov. Ruth Ann Minner in November.
A recent poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research had Minner with a 20 percentage point lead in separate head-to-head matchups against both Lee and Burris.
Incumbent Democratic Gov. Tom Carper is running for the U.S. Senate against Sen. Bill Roth, a Republican.
The primary race favored Burris, who was nicknamed the "Ayatollah" for his forceful leadership in the House. He was most recently president of the state Chamber of Commerce, primarily a lobbying post in a state known for its friendliness to business, but quit that job so he could campaign full-time.
But Lee, who stepped down from state Superior Court last fall after 22 years on the bench, made it on the primary ballot with a grass-roots campaign. And on Saturday morning the two men met in the parking lot of an elementary school in their hometown of Rehoboth Beach to cast their ballots.
Lee hoped to take advantage of his public recognition from presiding over the sensational murder trial of Thomas Capano, a politically connected lawyer convicted of killing his mistress, who was a secretary for Carper. Capano was sentenced to death.
Burris won the endorsement of state Republicans at their May convention, and as of Aug. 10 he still had $485,441 left of the $1.1 million he raised for his campaign. Lee estimated Friday he had only $55,000 left in his campaign accounts.
"Frankly, we thought Bill would have dropped out, especially after the showing of support I had at the state convention," Burris told The Associated Press.
But Lee put his faith in a grass-roots campaign of more than 1,000 volunteers. Many of his supporters were disenchanted Republicans getting involved in politics for the first time, or Democrats who switched parties to support him.
"It's not the money, it's ideas that count," Lee said. "John has raised four times as much money. We knew we had to run an efficient campaign."
On the Net: www.state.de.us/election; www.leedelaware.com; www.burrisgovernor2000.com; www.delawaregop.com