Arnold Schwarzenegger Wins

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Arnold Schwarzenegger Wins

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Schwarzenegger wins historic recall, Davis ousted

Californians banished Gov. Gray Davis just 11 months into his second term and elected action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace him Tuesday -- a Hollywood ending to one of the most extraordinary political melodramas in the nation's history.

Voters traded a career Democratic politician, who became one of the state's most despised chief executives, for a moderate Republican megastar who had never before run for office. Davis became the first California governor pried from office and only the second nationwide to be recalled.

"Tonight I stand before you with a heart full of gratitude and appreciation," Davis told a crowd of supporters at the downtown Biltmore Hotel. "We've had a lot of good nights over the last 20 years, but tonight the people did decide it is time for someone else to serve, and I accept their judgment."

He urged his supporters to put the division of the recall campaign behind them.

Early tallies showed the recall favored by 1,207,130 voters, or 56.2 percent, and opposed by 940,911, or 43.8 percent.

Other early returns had Schwarzenegger ahead with more than 1 million votes; Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante with 613,909; Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock with 256,408; and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo with 38,156.

Schwarzenegger prevailed despite a flurry of negative publicity in the campaign's final days, surviving allegations that he had groped women and accusations that as a young man he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.

The 56-year-old Austrian immigrant -- husband of television journalist Maria Shriver -- finds himself in charge of the nation's most populated state with an economy surpassed only by those of several countries.

Schwarzenegger promised to return the shine to a Golden State beset by massive budget problems and riven by deep political divisions.

Voters faced two questions -- whether to recall Davis, and who among the other candidates should replace him if he was removed. They chose to get rid of the incumbent and put Schwarzenegger in his place.

Source: Agencies

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