Like the nation as a whole, the race for Wisconsin’s 10 delegates remained too close to call election night.

The result here was expected to be exceedingly tight, particularly in light of Gore’s 2000 victory in Wisconsin by less than 6,000 votes over Bush. Even as the election raced to its conclusion this fall, the direction Wisconsin would vote on Election Day remained difficult to predict due to extremely close state polls, much like those across other battleground states.

Despite the close results Tuesday night, the swing state seemed poised to award Democratic candidate John Kerry with a razor-thin margin of victory of about 10,000 votes. However, many thought the state would go red, as the general trend seems to be supporting Bush. The president maintains a multi-million-ballot lead in the national popular vote.

“I thought Wisconsin would be a window for how the nation would go, and I really truly thought the state would go for Bush,” Jessi Schober, co-chair of Students for Bush, said, alluding to election results seeming to indicate that President Bush is poised to capture another four years in office.

Schober added though voters nationwide went to the polls Election Day based on their convictions on the issues, voters in Wisconsin were motivated by Democratic fear tactics more than the pull of substantive policy promises made by the Kerry campaign.

“The problem that we saw this year in the election … is it turned on the issues for one candidate and fear on the other candidate,” Schober said. “And fear won out in Wisconsin.”

In the end, it was the emphasis on high voter turnout rather than the issues that gave Kerry an edge in Wisconsin, Schober said.

“Whoever took Wisconsin was the one who was going to motivate the most voters,” she said.

Indeed, the push to get out the vote in Wisconsin, particularly that of students, assured many liberals the state’s electoral votes would once again belong to the Democratic ticket in the presidential race.

“I was very confident that we were going to win Wisconsin. There was such a great vibe on campus here, such great energy among students,” Liz Sanger, chair of College Democrats, said. “I knew we were going to win this campus … and the vote here would propel Kerry in the state.”

Nevertheless, Kerry’s win in Madison proves hallow for many Democrats who seemed ready to accept defeat as Bush’s hold on the electoral lead grew increasingly tighter throughout the course of the night.

“It’s like a victory — but then a defeat,” Sanger said. “It’s not a satisfying feeling.”

“You know you did the most you could to win the election in the community you could touch, but it really does stop at the state border.”

Both candidates poured a tremendous amount of resources into winning the state, visiting Wisconsin dozens of times in the fall. Revealing the deep political polarization among voters in the state, the Kerry campaign focused on Madison and Milwaukee in particular while President Bush tended to visit the Waukesha and Fox River Valley areas in an effort by both camps to cement their respective partisan bases.

The last week of the election marked a particular frenzy of activity, with the two candidates crisscrossing the state repeatedly.

Those last-minute campaign stops may have made a difference: one in 10 voters said they made up their minds about who to vote for in the last three days of the election, according to Associated Press exit polls in Wisconsin.