AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Republican Paul LePage, a tea party-backed candidate won Maine’s five-way race for governor and vowed Wednesday to fulfill promises of streamlining government and working to bring good-paying jobs to the state.

The Waterville mayor defeated independent Eliot Cutler and three other candidates to become the first Republican to be elected governor since John McKernan won his second term in 1990.

LePage had to wait until late Wednesday morning to learn for sure that he’d won. He also learned that Republicans had won control of both the Maine House and the Maine Senate.

“We’re not going to Augusta with an ax to be chopping heads. We’re going to Augusta to do the same thing we did in Waterville: Reverse the trend of high taxes, streamline regulations, and shrink the size and scope of government. We need more jobs. We need better jobs in Maine, and that’s what we’re going to be doing,” he said.

He told The Associated Press he was getting to work right away on assembling his transition team. He said his priority will be to “put Maine people ahead of politics.”

Cutler called to congratulate LePage on Wednesday and later announced that he would not seek a recount.

The 62-year-old LePage surprised political observers and even himself with a decisive win in a seven-way primary in June. The victory in his first statewide campaign marks another step in a rags-to-riches story for LePage, who was homeless at age 11 but went on to finish college and have a successful career in business.

Fluent in French, LePage will become Maine’s first Franco-American governor since 1879, when Alonzo Garcelon was elected by the Legislature to serve a one-year term.

LePage ran for governor with promises to cut taxes, reform welfare, reduce what he sees as a bloated state bureaucracy and cut regulations he said hamper business and job growth. LePage surprised political observers with a decisive win in a seven-way primary in June, while playing down his support from tea party activists.

But he maintained a consistent lead in the polls over Democrat Libby Mitchell and independents Cutler, Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott throughout the fall campaign. But Cutler surged late in the campaign, and the vote count was so close that Cutler and LePage sent their supporters home early Wednesday without being able to declare victory.

With 93 percent of precincts reporting, LePage was winning with 38 percent of the vote to 37 percent for Cutler in unofficial returns. Mitchell had 19 percent.

This race had similarities to 1974, when another independent, James Longley Sr., came from behind in the final weeks of the campaign to win over Democrat George Mitchell, who later became a U.S. senator, and Republican James Erwin. This year, polls showed Cutler with only 9 percent support among likely voters in late September.

“Longley snuck up on them until it was too late and the Democrats and Republicans couldn’t do anything about it,” said Bowdoin College professor Christian Potholm. “This cycle, the Democrats and Republicans finally woke up, finally realized this guy wasn’t going to get 10 percent of the vote, then they turned their guns on him and turned him back.”

LePage brought to the campaign a compelling personal story that few if any Maine politicians in recent decades could match. Abused in an impoverished home, he took to the streets of Lewiston at age 11 and took shelter wherever he could find it, sometimes in horse stables or an upstairs room of a strip joint.

He went on with his education and launched a successful business career, currently as general manager of Marden’s, a chain of surplus and salvage stores.

Running for the highest office in a state where more than on a third of the population is of French and Canadian descent, LePage displayed his Franco-American heritage with pride. During an early televised debate, he addressed the audience during the opening in French.

His personal experience helped form the backdrop of LePage’s proposal to reshape the rules of welfare into a tiered system that lowers benefits as a recipient earns more so a person is not penalized for working.

LePage repeatedly stressed his bedrock belief that giving businesses more freedom from government regulations will enable them to expand and create jobs, pointing to Maine’s nationally low rating for pro-business climate.

He said a governor alone “cannot create private-sector jobs, but create the environment and culture in Augusta to reform its regulatory system, to bring it back into the middle of the pack, to unleash the job creators.”

Married with five grown children, including two from a previous marriage, LePage’s personal financial dealings came into question during the campaign when it was revealed his wife had sought tax breaks on homes in Florida as well as Maine. LePage’s wife, Ann, lives in Florida for part of the year to care for her ill mother.

LePage attributed the request for dual tax breaks to a “paperwork” error. The issue went away when officials in Florida ruled that the tax break there was justified.

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Associated Press writers David Sharp and Clarke Canfield in Portland contributed to this report.

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