Tim Pawlenty emerged from a crowded field Tuesday to win Minnesota's gubernatorial race Tuesday night, gaining the lead in early returns and building on it through the night and into early Wednesday morning before DFLer Roger Moe conceded after 2 a.m.

Elections 2002 VOTING Election Results Coleman State's Next Senator Republicans Nearly Sweep State Offices Kline Beats Luther On Third Try Pawlenty Wins Race For Governor Wisconsin Voters Oust Incumbent Governor Minnesota E-Democracy Who Did I Vote For? Election Background (PDF File) THE PARTIES DFL Party GOP Party Green Party Independence Party Secretary Of State

CNN first declared Pawlenty the winner shortly after midnight, and The Associated Press followed suit more than one hour later.

Pawlenty, the House majority leader, shot out of the pack in the polls in the last two weeks and surged to victory on Election Day with 45 percent of the vote with more than 80 percent of the state's precincts having reported by 3 a.m.

He won the state's second consecutive three-way gubernatorial race as he appeared to take votes from Independence Party candidate Tim Penny in the last 10 days.

DFLer Roger Moe was second behind Pawlenty with 36 percent when CNN declared Pawlenty the winner. Penny pulled in third with 15 percent of the vote.

Pawlenty survived a campaign finance oversight board slap over a campaign commercial that cost him advertising money at the race's end.

He campaigned on a platform pledge to not raise taxes, as the lone pro-life candidate in the gubernatorial race and with a promise to pay for transportation improvements using general fund money rather than gas tax increases.

He also stressed making public schools more accountable.

Political observers credited Pawlenty's campaign with a strong strategic move in the last two weeks when he ran an television ad declaring his support for a controversial measure to put visa expiration dates on drivers' licenses of international visitors to Minnesota.

Moe was in his room at the Radisson Hotel in downtown St. Paul and emerged shortly before 10 p.m. to rouse the crowd of DFLers.

His speech before the crowd talked of his first election to the state Senate. He also thanked supporters, colleagues, friends at the capitol in a speech that had a conciliatory tone and was delivered with somber faces of close supporters gathered behind him.

It had the flavor of a concession speech as early returns showed Pawlenty consistently ahead in the vote count.

Pawlenty, who's 41, grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood of South St. Paul, became a Phi Beta Kappa scholar at the University of Minnesota and honor graduate at its law school.

He entered politics as a college student, serving as an intern for Senator Dave Durenberger, and was later elected to a planning commission and the city council in suburban Eagan. He became a state legislator in 1992.

The governor's race was Pawlenty's first choice, but party stalwarts convinced him to run for Senate instead. But the day he'd planned to announce a run, Vice President Dick Cheney asked him to leave that path clear for Norm Coleman.

The gubernatorial race had been running second fiddle in the public eye for weeks, even before Sen. Paul Wellstone's campaign plane crashed, killing him, his wife, daughter, three staffers and two pilots.

After four years of political outsider Gov. Jesse Ventura heading up state government, all three front-running candidates were seasoned political insiders.

And the race took off in June when Ventura announced that he wouldn't seek a second term.

That left the field open for two ranking legislators who were endorsed by the state's two long-standing parties. Moe, the Senate majority leader, and Pawlenty, the House majority leader, both won their party's nominations.

They were joined in the race by Tim Penny, a former DFL congressman in the early 1990s turned independent who ran after serving as a political adviser to Ventura. Penny received the nod of the Independence Party in that race.

They were also joined by Ken Pentel of the Green Party, who has consistently polled in the lower single digits in the waning weeks of the campaign. After the three other candidates ran closely in the polls, published polls in the last 10 days showed Penny's support slipping with Moe and Pawlenty running in a statistical tie.

Penny disputed those recent polls, and said on Twin Cities television even before the polls closed that the reported heavy turnout plays to his favor.

The four took part in numerous debates in all corners of the state in the last several months.

The new governor will inherit several high profile issues, with the most glaring being a projected budget deficit in excess of $3 billion.

School districts in the state have also been asking voters for levy referendums in record numbers in the last two years with school officials saying recent changes to state funding formulas have pinched their budgets, increasing class sizes and limiting raises and benefit hikes to employees.

With an increasing number of voters in the state residing in the suburbs transportation funding has also been a high-profile, hot-button issue that stalled at the Legislature without resolution last session.