NAPLES (CBS4) - Democrat Alex Sink has conceded the Governor's race to Republican Rick Scott.

Early Wednesday morning, Republican Rick Scott held a narrow lead over Democrat Alex Sink by a little more than 70,000 votes, but thousands of votes had yet to be counted.

At her post election party in Tampa early Sink said she would wait for every vote to be counted. At 10 a.m. she called a news conference and conceded defeat.

"There is no path to victory for us, so therefore Rick Scott will be the next Governor of the State of Florida. I have just called Rick Scott to congratulate him and I told him that, especially that after a very close election, he will need to work hard, he will need to work very hard to bring our state together," Sink.

During her speech a somber Sink said while she was disappointed, life goes on.

"But I have a perspective and have seen lots of ups and downs, and I know that because of my stage in life that every morning we will wake up to a new day," said Sink.

When asked why she thought the race was so close, Sink said she felt it was a reflection of the nation's mood.

"It's hard to analyze. I think we have to look at the national landscape and also the Florida landscape. What happened across the country was a tsunami of expression, of distrust probably of government and the fact that we came so incredibly close, so within less than 100 thousand votes in this election. It's really a remarkable statement that so many people believed in me and Rod (Smith) and our message and were willing to cross party lines to make a statement," said Sink.

When asked if she was outgunned by Scott's financing, Sink replied initially yes but they caught up.

"Well we have to look at history again. We've never had a candidate running in the state of Florida who spent more than $70 million of his own money. A lot of negative advertising starting in the Republican primary but at the end I believe we had sufficient resources to be competitive, look how close we came in an environment which other Democrats were losing by points," said Sink.

Sink said she called Scott to congratulate and remind him that with such a narrow victory, he has a lot of work ahead of him.

"I hope Rick Scott remembers there are 2.5 million Floridians who did not vote for him and that his highest priority has to be bringing out state together to meet our challenges," said Sink.

On Monday the latest Quinnipiac University poll predicted a virtual dead heat going into Election Day, Sink had 44 percent of the vote to Scott's 43 percent; the survey had a 3.2 percent margin of error.

Scott, a political outsider who poured more than $75 million of his money into the campaign, was dogged throughout his campaign by his past leadership of a hospital network that paid a record $1.7 billion fine to settle federal charges of Medicaid and Medicare fraud. He left the company before the settlement and was never charged with a crime.

Scott's campaign sought to link Sink to employees at a subsidiary of her former bank who allegedly drew seniors into risky investments. NationsBank paid a $6.7 million fine for the practice. Sink, who at the time was president of the bank's Florida operations, said she had nothing to do with the case.