Kelly Ayotte, the Republican who had her party's backing in New Hampshire's crowded Senate primary, was declared the winner Wednesday after a protracted vote count made for an anxious morning. With a victory by Ayotte, a former state attorney general, New Hampshire bucked the trend of anti-establishment challengers defeating better-financed, more mainstream candidates. But her thin margin of victory over Ovide LaMontagne, a conservative lawyer who spent little money yet drew strong grass-roots support, suggested more intraparty dissent than had been expected. Ayotte, 42, now faces Rep. Paul W. Hodes, a Democrat who has served two terms, in the race to replace Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican who is retiring. She has cast herself as a fiscal and social conservative who will fight to reduce federal spending; Hodes, too, is running on a message of fiscal responsibility. David Scanlon, New Hampshire's deputy secretary of state, said Ayotte received 53,044 votes compared with 51,377 for LaMontagne -- a margin of about 1 percent. Bill Binnie, a businessman, finished third with 19,503 votes, followed by Jim Bender, another businessman, with 12,609 votes. Seven candidates competed for the nomination, spending more than $9.5 million. LaMontagne said Wednesday afternoon that he would not seek a recount. State law would have allowed him to do so, because the margin was less than 1.5 percent of the total votes cast. 'You know me, and you know that I'm a fighter,' he said at a news conference, 'but I only take on those fights which have a probability of success.' The race to replace Hodes in the House will be between Charlie Bass, a moderate Republican, and Ann McLane Kuster, a liberal Democrat and first-time candidate from a political family. In remarks to supporters, Bass, a former representative ousted in 2006, described himself as a fiscal conservative and Kuster as someone who believes that 'Washington hasn't spent enough.' In New Hampshire's other House district, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, a two-term Democratic incumbent who barely held onto her seat in 2008, will face Frank Guinta, a former Republican mayor of Manchester. Like Hodes, Shea-Porter is considered vulnerable. In the Senate primary, LaMontagne won more Tea Party support than Ayotte; Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, endorsed him, and he won straw polls at Tea Party events by large margins. Ayotte had the support of Sarah Palin, who called her a 'mama grizzly' but never came to New Hampshire to campaign for her. Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said Palin's support might have helped Ayotte raise money but was probably not a major factor for voters. Deb MacWhirter, a Manchester resident, said she voted for Ayotte because of her record as a prosecutor. In particular, MacWhirter said she admired Ayotte for winning a death penalty conviction and sentence for a man charged with killing a police officer. She said she did not care that Ayotte had been criticized as an establishment candidate. 'It doesn't make a difference to me if she's part of the system,' MacWhirter said. 'I went more by what she said.' Smith said Ayotte could probably beat Hodes given how energized Republican voters were this year. Of the two, he said, Ayotte has higher favorability ratings. 'Hodes is in a tough spot,' Smith said. 'Ayotte is much closer to the center of the 2010 political electorate.' Ayotte also has the full-throated support of her party, a privilege that another Republican nominee, Christine O'Donnell of Delaware, could not count on going into Tuesday's election. Delaware's Republican chairman had said O'Donnell was 'not a viable candidate.' And no less than Karl Rove, the one-time top strategist for former President George W. Bush, said that she was plagued by scandal and that 'there's just a lot of nutty things she's been saying that just simply don't add up.' But Wednesday in Washington, Republicans embraced their newest Senate nominee despite having savaged her during the primary campaign. In a statement issued half a day after O'Donnell's victory on Tuesday night, Sen. John Cornyn of the National Republican Senatorial Committee called O'Donnell and pledged his support. He later announced a $42,000 contribution to her campaign, the maximum allowed by law. 'Let there be no mistake: The National Republican Senatorial Committee -- and I personally as the committee's chairman -- strongly stand by all of our Republican nominees, including Christine O'Donnell in Delaware,' Cornyn, of Texas, said in the statement. Democrats cast O'Donnell's victory as further evidence of a hard turn to the right for the Republican Party that will undermine its chances in the general election. But some moderate Republicans said the Democrats should not express too much glee about an anti-establishment mood that could be aimed just as directly at them. 'They should be wary,' said John Weaver, a longtime Republican consultant to Sen. John McCain. 'This isn't just a Republican internal issue. There is palpable anger across the ideological divides in this country aimed at Washington.' 