Actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered his victory speech at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles tonight just after 10:30 p.m. PST.

Striking a note of conciliation, Schwarzenegger sought to put the negativity of the campaign behind him, saying, "Tonight we are all here celebrating, but tomorrow the hard work will begin... I want to be the people's governor. I want to represent everybody... I know that together we can again make this the greatest state in the greatest country in the world."

And with that, Schwarzenegger becomes the governor-elect of the largest, most influential state in the union.

Gov. Gray Davis conceded defeat before a crowd of dejected and emotional supporters at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles tonight.

"Tonight I stand before you with a heart full of gratitude and appreciation," he told his supporters. "Tonight, the voters decided it's time for someone else." Supporters responded with a cascade of boos.

Later in the speech, after reciting some of the achievements of his five years in office, said: "My friends, in the next few weeks, we will have a new governor..." At that point, the crowd began chanting "recall, recall." But Davis held up his hand to stop them. "Now I have a different message for you: I am calling on everyone in this state to put the divisiveness and the chaos of the recall behind them and do what's right for this great state of California."

My washingtonpost.com colleague Dan Jung reports on the gloomy mood at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, which is Gray Davis headquarters tonight: "People are pretty sad here. There are a lot of hugs. I talked to one woman, Michelle Rex, a 29-year-old from Los Angeles, who said, 'I don't think that I'll accept it, even after they certify the vote.' All the big TV monitors here are off, almost as if they don't want to know the news."

State Sen. Tom McClintock, a Republican conservative who resisted party pressure to drop out of the race, conceded shortly before 9 p.m. PST tonight.

"This is a great day for California," McClintock told supporters in Sacramento. The voters, he said, had "ordered a new direction for our state...I believe our campaign acted as the conscience of this election, and that we framed the issues on which this contest was ultimately decided."

It was supposed to be a late night here on the West Coast. The talking heads were predicting a close contest and that the results might not be known for a few days. So much for the talking heads.

Gov. Gray Davis was apparently recalled definitively, and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was apparently elected definitively. Thus less than a year after Davis narrowly won the right from voters to serve a second term, those same voters booted him out in a historic recall election.

Truth be told, the campaigns knew by mid-afternoon what was going to happen. I interviewed a Davis adviser around 3 p.m. PST today and gave this person an opportunity to flak for Davis. The adviser declined, saying only that the campaign was hopeful things would break Davis's way.

A couple hours later, I encountered a Schwarzenegger official at the Century Plaza Hotel and this person chatted amiably and confidently about the exit polls. Asked to interpret the exit polls, the official smiled. "It looks good."

Indeed it did. Many journalists and media organizations had access to the same exit polls and most acted responsibly, waiting until the polls closed to report it. By 8 p.m. PST, most major media organizations were chomping at the bit to report the news: California has a new governor.