Bush waits on close counts

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush and challenger Sen. 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 decisive state, with Kerry's options dwindling.\nFox News and NBC News projected Bush to win Ohio, which would bring him within one of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency and all but ensure his re-election. Bush led Kerry by only 122,045 votes in Ohio with 96 percent of the precincts reporting shortly after 2 a.m.\nBush 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.\n"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.\nKerry, 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.\n"I'm not pretending to anybody that it's a bed of roses," the Democrat said.\nThe 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.\nIn the early hours of Wednesday, 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.\nKerry could pick that up plus some in Ohio with 20 electoral votes. Without the Buckeye state, he could only turn to Nevada (five votes).\nA 269-269 tie would throw the presidential race to the House.\nSen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.: "Obviously the presidential race is going to keep us up most of the night."\nBush 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.\nRepublicans 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.\nRepublicans extended their decade-long hold on the House for another two years, knocking off four veteran Texas Democrats.