WASHINGTON -President Bush and challenger John Kerry sweated out a tension-packed conclusion to the race between an embattled incumbent and a Democrat who questioned the war he waged in Iraq. Ohio loomed as this year's Florida, the deciding state, with Kerry's options dwindling.
Bush won Florida, the state he nailed down four years ago only after a 36-day recount and Supreme Court decision. Kerry hung on to the Democratic prize of Pennsylvania but had precious few places to pick up electoral votes that went Republican in 2000. He took New Hampshire from Bush, but it has only four electoral votes. That leaves just Ohio and Nevada.
I believe I will win
thank you very much Bush said while awaiting results from the hard-fought Midwest and Florida with his family and dog Barney.
Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator, allowed himself to muse about the problems he might face in the White House, including a soaring deficit and a war that has claimed more than 1,100 lives.
I'm not pretending to anybody that it's a bed of roses the Democrat said.
The Electoral College count was excruciating: With 270 votes needed, Bush won 27 states for 249 votes. Kerry won 16 states plus the District of Columbia for 221 votes.
In the early hours this morning, with several battleground states still unsettled, Kerry was still on the hunt for electoral votes the GOP won four years ago. The states won by Democrat Al Gore in 2000 are worth just 260 votes this year due to redistricting -10 short of the coveted number.
Kerry could pick that up plus some in Ohio with 20 electoral votes. Without the Buckeye state, he could only turn to Nevada (5 votes).
A 269-269 tie would throw the presidential race to the House.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Obviously the presidential race is going to keep us up most of the night.
Bush lost Pennsylvania, a major blow after courting voters with steel tariffs and 44 visits in a bid to steal it from the Democrats. The loss raises the stakes in Florida and Ohio, both won by Bush in 2000.
Independent candidate Ralph Nader could play the spoiler in Nevada.
Republicans moved toward increasing their majority in the Senate, winning Democratic seats in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Louisiana while Democrats took GOP-held seats in Colorado and Illinois. State Sen. Barack Obama won easily in Illinois; in January, he will be the third black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Republicans extended their decade-long hold on the House for another two years, knocking off four veteran Texas Democrats.
Alongside the White House and congressional races, a full roster of propositions and local offices kept voters busy. But all eyes were focused on Kerry's bid to make Bush the first president voted out of office in the midst of a war.
I've given it my all
Bush said after voting in a firehouse at Crawford, Texas, hoping to avoid being the first wartime president bounced from office.
The race showed signs of being as close as 2000, when Bush lost the popular vote to Gore but won the Electoral College count and the presidency after a ruling by the Supreme Court gave him Florida. The incumbent hoped to avoid the fate of his father, former President George H.W. Bush, who was bounced by voters in 1992 after waging war against Iraq and overseeing an ailing economy.
Braced for a replay of the 2000 recount, legions of lawyers and election-rights activists watched for signs of voter fraud or disenfranchisement. New lawsuits sought clearer standards to evaluate provisional ballots in Ohio and a longer deadline to count absentee ballots in Florida.
While complaints were widespread, they were mot significant. So far
it's no big
but lots of littles
said elections expert Doug Chapin.
Voters were torn over the presidential race, in ways all too familiar.
Exit polls suggested that slightly more voters trusted Bush to handle terrorism than Kerry. A majority said the country was safer from terrorism than four years ago, and they overwhelmingly backed Bush.
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