AUGUSTA – Shortly after noon Friday, Republican congressional candidate Timothy Woodcock tapped his primary opponent Kevin Raye on the shoulder and guided him to a quiet area of the cluttered garage behind the Maine State Police barracks.

With a handshake, an exchange of smiles and a brief conversation, Woodcock conceded to his Republican rival, ending the four-day-long recount in the GOP primary for the open 2nd Congressional District seat.

When all was said and done, Raye, a former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, bested Woodcock, a former Bangor mayor and aide to then-U.S. Sen. William Cohen, by a vote of 11,861 to 11,542, a difference of 319 votes.

As a result of the recount, Raye lost nine votes from his election night total and Woodcock gained 82.

The other two Republican primary candidates, state Rep. Stavros Mendros and former state Rep. Dick Campbell, finished with 8,022 and 7,383 votes, respectively. Their votes were not recounted.

Raye, of Perry, will face Democratic nominee Mike Michaud of East Millinocket in the November election. The winner of that contest will replace U.S. Rep. John Baldacci, who vacated the seat to run for governor.

Candidate recount teams had tallied results from nine counties and were working on a 10th when Woodcock conceded, telling the volunteer workers he had fulfilled his aim of ensuring voters had confidence in the determination of the election outcome.

“I think we all now have that level of confidence that the vote as tabulated does reflect the vote as cast,” he said.

The first two days of the recount featured large swings in the Election Day tallies, with Woodcock trimming Raye’s lead from 410 to 321.

Woodcock ended the proceedings at midday Friday after recounts of the vote in the Penobscot County communities of Bangor, Brewer and Hampden yielded little movement in either candidate’s totals.

The candidates addressed the media and a small group of party faithful later in the day at a news conference at the Maine Republican Party headquarters in Hallowell.

Raye, a moderate Republican with positions similar to those of Snowe, congratulated Woodcock on a well-run campaign and vowed to return the seat to the Republican Party.

“I will work to continue the Maine tradition of sending people to Washington who have the courage of their convictions,” he said.

At the event, Woodcock pledged to work with Raye in his effort to reclaim the seat for the GOP, which lost the seat eight years ago when Baldacci succeeded Snowe, who ran for the U.S. Senate.

Maine’s senior senator also took time to congratulate her longtime chief of staff.

“There is no candidate better suited for the responsibility, or more familiar with the district,” Snowe said in a statement, in which she alluded to campaigning with her former aide.

Both parties are expected to devote many campaign dollars to the race, seen by officials on both sides as pivotal in the tenuous balance of power in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.

And before heading back to Washington, Raye will have to get past Maine Senate President Pro Tempore Michaud, a Democrat who bested his Senate colleague Susan Longley of Liberty and four other rivals in that party’s primary.

Michaud aides on Friday said considering the Election Day totals, they had planned on facing Raye in November, and they welcomed the challenge.

“We look forward to talking about the issues,” Michaud press secretary Monica Castellanos said from the campaign’s Lewiston headquarters.

The recount was one of the more cordial in recent memory, state election officials said, with no disputed ballots.

The 2nd Congressional District – the largest east of the Mississippi River – includes Androscoggin, Aroostook, Franklin, Hancock, Oxford, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo and Washington counties and parts of Kennebec County.