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Sen. John Kerry has conceded the 2004 presidential race, the Associated Press is reporting, giving President Bush a second term and ending a battle over the outcome of the election in Ohio.
Hours after President Bush's top aide assured supporters that re-election was a certainty, aides to Kerry were meeting mid-morning Wednesday to discuss their next move and whether to challenge the vote in Ohio, where Bush holds a three-point lead while thousands of "provisional" ballots wait to be counted.
Andrew Card, Bush's White House chief of staff, told partisans at about 5:45 a.m. ET Wednesday, "We are convinced that President Bush has won re-election ..."
The president is expected to speak to the nation at an unspecified time today, according to White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett. Republican Party Chairman Marc Racicot, according to The Associated Press, said the president planned to declare victory but put it off temporarily as a courtesy to Kerry, "to allow the opportunity to look at the situation in the cold hard light of day."
Kerry's aides were meeting today and planned at least one other session before taking their recommendation to the senator, said several involved in the deliberations. Advisers said he planned a statement by midday.
Hours earlier, at about 2:30 a.m. ET, Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards told supporters that he and Kerry will "fight for every vote" as the campaign looked at the potentially clouded outcome in Ohio.
The Associated Press estimated Bush had 254 electoral votes and Kerry had 252. With only two other states — Iowa and New Mexico — undecided as of mid-morning Wednesday, the recipient of Ohio's 20 electoral votes will win the election.
Bush led Kerry by more than 136,000 votes in the Ohio ballot count, but the issue of provisional ballots — votes cast by those whose eligibility was questioned — left the winner of the state uncertain.
Kerry supporters claim there are as many as 250,000 uncounted provisional ballots still outstanding. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell told ABC News on Wednesday morning no one knows how many provisional ballots are outstanding, but he said the total was "trending" toward 175,000.
Bush supporters seized on Blackwell's numbers and proclaimed the president the winner.The dispute opened the possibility that Ohio would become the Florida of 2004, with recounts and legal challenges possible.
Card said Bush will get "at least 286 electoral college votes."
Card said Blackwell's office "has informed us that this margin is statistically insurmountable, even after the provisional ballots are counted."
Lawyers for Bush boarded a plane in Washington before dawn, bound for Ohio. They will join hundreds of Republican lawyers already there.Democrats have thousands of lawyers in Ohio already, and held off sending any of their trained "SWAT teams" of election lawyers, a precaution this year because of the close presidential race and the bitter memory of the 36-day recount battle in Florida in 2000.
Ohio moved into the spotlight early Wednesday after Bush won Florida — the state at the center of the disputed 2000 election. Kerry then won Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, followed by a Bush win in Nevada. Kerry later added Michigan and then became the projected winner of Wisconsin about 4:40 a.m., leaving Ohio as the key state.
At the White House on Tuesday night, where he was watching election returns with his family, Bush said he was "very upbeat."
"I believe I will win," the president said. "It's going to be an exciting evening."
"It's been a long night, but we've waited four years for this victory. We can wait one more night," Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards told supporters in Boston early Wednesday. Edwards said he and Kerry had promised supporters "that every vote would count and every vote would be counted."
There had been speculation that Bush would attend pre-dawn GOP rally at the nearby Ronald Reagan Building to declare victory, but White House officials said shortly after 5 a.m. Wednesday that the president had no imminent plans to leave the White House. Card said Bush was giving Kerry time to "reflect" on the election results. Kerry has not been heard from since Tuesday.
. Races in both New Mexico and Iowa remained extremely close early Wednesday. Problems with counting absentee ballots and voting equipment delayed Iowa results and Wisconsin officials cited high turnout for the lengthy tabulating of votes.
The president now has won Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Kerry has won California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
Independent Ralph Nader received a smaller percentage of the vote than he did in 2000, when he was a factor in several key states. Nader polled at less than 1% in many states.
"Trying to challenge the two-party dictatorship is like trying to climb a cliff with a slippery rope," Nader told CNN.
Congress, governors, ballot measures
Republicans have kept control of the Senate and the House, according to projections. Every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and 34 seats in the Senate were up for election. In perhaps the night's biggest race, Republican challenger John Thune defeated Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota, according to AP projections. Daschle becomes the first party leader to lose a Senate race in more than 50 years.