"We have won by a large margin," the 54-year-old senator told cheering supporters in a speech broadcast live on television hours after the polls closed.
A partial count showed her with 43 per cent of the vote, double that of her nearest rival, according to a tally of 12 per cent of ballots on the official electoral agency website.
If maintained, that score will make her the outright victor of the election without the need for a runoff in November.
With her husband on stage with her, applauding her words, Fernandez made special mention "of the man who is at my side today, and who has been my companion all my life," and blew him a kiss.
In the lead-up to the elections -- which she entered as the solid favorite -- she emphasized her husband's presidential record more than her own two decades in politics as a lawmaker.
Kirchner, 57, enjoys widespread popularity for having overseen an impressive turnaround in Argentina's economy during his four-year mandate. He has not explained why he is stepping down.
When he came in, the country was still in a poor state after a 2001 economic collapse that saw it become the biggest-ever sovereign debt defaulter. Since then, the economy has grown nearly 50 per cent and unemployment has halved.
Fernandez reminded supporters of that, telling them "we have come a long way" since those early, desperate days.
"We have repositioned the country, fought poverty and unemployment, all these tragedies that have hit Argentines," she said.
Observers, though, said Fernandez could be in for a rough ride if she ignored the threats now stalking the country: high inflation, rising crime and low foreign investment.
"She will find it a very different challenge than that during her husband's term," Michael Shifter, a Latin American analyst at the Washington thinktank The Dialogue, told AFP.
"The risk is that she's going to think that what worked for him will work for her," he said.
Official early figures showed Argentina's 27 million voters had given her a huge lead over the 13 other challengers who had tried to take over Kirchner's job.
The two closest rivals were a respected former economy minister, Roberto Lavagna, on around 20 per cent, and a former lawmaker, Elisa Carrio, on 19 per cent.
A lawyer who got her taste of executive power during her husband's term in office, Fernandez has been frequently compared to US lawyer, senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton.
Her penchant for designer dresses and a reputation for arrogance have also made many talk about her in terms of Argentina's most iconic woman politician: Eva, or "Evita" Peron, second wife to president Juan Peron.
It was Juan Peron's third wife, Isabel, who was Argentina's first-ever female president -- but that was because she was elevated from the vice-presidency on her husband's death in 1974, and she never had a chance to contest an election, being ousted in a coup two years later.
Sunday's election also selected half the seats in the upper and lower houses of the national congress, and the governors and parliaments in several provinces.
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