OLYMPIA – Republican Dino Rossi’s tiny lead over Democrat Christine Gregoire in the closest governor’s race in Washington state history triggered an automatic recount Wednesday.

Rossi held a 261-vote lead – out of 2.8 million ballots cast – after counties reported their final tallies to the state.

“Making history isn’t easy,” Rossi said, smiling as he spoke to reporters outside his Bellevue campaign headquarters Wednesday night.

Gregoire agreed the night was historic, but “not the kind of history I had in mind on Nov. 2.”

She said she believes the recount will declare her the ultimate winner, calling Wednesday’s results a “virtual tie.”

State law requires an automatic recount when the margin of victory is less than 2,000 votes. In 40 years, no statewide recount has reversed the election outcome – but there’s never been a governor’s race this close before.

“We really aren’t going to know before we do this recount who the governor is going to be,” said Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican who will oversee the recount. “I feel sorry for Attorney General Gregoire and Senator Rossi.”

Reed said the final results could change, and lawsuits may ensue. Reed said the machine recount should start today and be finished by Wednesday.

Rossi thanked his wife, four children, brothers and sisters, and his cousins. “I’ve got a lot of relatives – probably about 261,” he quipped.

He also thanked Democrats and independents for voting for him, and promised to reach across party lines if the recount confirms his victory.

“I do plan on being governor of the whole state of Washington,” he said.

Gregoire said she would support Rossi if he wins, but she believes the recount will put her back on top. She gave supporters in Seattle the thumbs up as they cheered for her.

“We’re going to make sure, in this recount, every single vote counts,” Gregoire said. “This is not about Republican or Democrat, Libertarian or independent, this is about all of us as Washingtonians, standing up, casting our ballots.”

The vote-counting stretched over two weeks as mail ballots trickled in to county election offices. Only Washington and Alaska allow voters to mail ballots on Election Day.

“What a crazy election!” said Gov. Gary Locke, a Democrat who is stepping down after two terms. “This race provides a clear example of why every person should vote, because your ballot might make the difference.”

The breathtaking closeness of the election was reflected in Wednesday’s horse race. Rossi began the day 19 votes ahead, but King County’s 4 p.m. report gave Gregoire a 39-vote lead. Gregoire’s lead thinned as the sun set. At 5:14 p.m., Rossi went ahead by four votes. At 5:59, Gregoire took the lead by 13 votes. Finally, at 6:33 p.m., Benton County put Rossi ahead by 261 votes.

Washington leans Democrat and has not elected a Republican governor since John Spellman in 1980. John Kerry won the state with 53 percent of the vote, Locke easily defeated Republican opponents in the past two gubernatorial elections, and Democrats will control the Legislature in the coming session.

So why was this election so close?

Gregoire looked like the Democrats’ Wonder Woman. Polished and popular, the 57-year-old attorney general won national recognition as lead negotiator of the 1997 tobacco settlement, in which major tobacco companies agreed to pay $206 billion to 46 states. But after a bruising primary, her campaign struggled to find a message that connected with voters.

Rossi, meanwhile, surprised everyone with a slick, strong campaign identifying him as a conservative with a sense of responsibility for social services. He wasn’t the first-choice candidate for state Republicans, who tried and failed to recruit three other high-profile prospects to run. A commercial real estate agent and two-term state senator, the 45-year-old Rossi lacked name recognition outside his own district. But his promise of a fresh start in state government caught on with voters.

“Gregoire ran a front-runner, media-based race, where she did not take controversial positions and focused her resources on the media rather than the grass roots, and that’s very dangerous,” said political scientist Ken Hoover, a professor at Western Washington University. “Rossi had a somewhat sharper message.”

Libertarian Ruth Bennett appealed to liberal voters with her support for same-sex marriage and captured 2 percent of the vote.

As the vote-counting dragged on, both state parties went to court, and conspiracy theories circulated among election watchers.

Democrats sued in King County to get names of voters whose provisional ballots could have been disqualified because of mismatched signatures. They then collected affidavits from provisional ballot voters attesting to the ballots’ validity. Republicans intervened, saying affidavits collected by partisans left the election open to fraud.

A judge ordered the provisional ballots counted and chided both sides for dragging the election into court.

King County raised eyebrows on Monday when election officials announced they had underestimated the uncounted ballots by 10,000. That boosted Gregoire, who got strong support in King County.

Gregoire got another break when Grays Harbor County officials realized Tuesday that hundreds of votes had been reported twice. They started fresh on Tuesday, and the recount switched the lead there from Rossi to Gregoire.