Kerry ended his quest, concluding one of the most expensive and bitterly contested races on record, with a call to the president shortly after 11 a.m. EST, according to two officials familiar with the

Kerry ended his quest, concluding one of the most expensive and bitterly contested races on record, with a call to the president shortly after 11 a.m. EST, according to two officials familiar with the conversation.
The victory gave Bush four more years to pursue the war on terror and a conservative, tax-cutting agenda -- and probably the opportunity to name one or more justices to an aging Supreme Court.
He also will preside over expanded Republican majorities in Congress.
"Congratulations, Mr. President," Kerry said in the conversation described by sources as lasting less than five minutes. One of the sources was Republican, the other a Democrat.
The Democratic source said Bush called Kerry a worthy, tough and honorable opponent. Kerry told Bush the country was too divided, the source said, and Bush agreed. "We really have to do something about it," Kerry said, according to the Democratic official.
Weighing options
Kerry placed his call after weighing unattractive options overnight. With Bush holding fast to a six-figure lead in make-or-break Ohio, Kerry could give up or trigger a struggle that would have stirred memories of the bitter recount in Florida that propelled Bush to the White House in 2000.
Kerry's call was the last bit of drama in a campaign full of it.
He acted hours after White House Chief of Staff Andy Card declared Bush the winner and White House aides said the president was giving Kerry time to consider his next step.
One senior Democrat familiar with the discussions in Boston said Kerry's running mate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, was suggesting that he shouldn't concede.
The official said Edwards, a trial lawyer, wanted to make sure that all options were explored and that Democrats pursued them as thoroughly as Republicans would if the positions were reversed.
Advisers said the campaign just wanted one last look for uncounted ballots that might close the 136,000-vote advantage Bush held in Ohio.
An Associated Press survey of the state's 88 counties found there were about 150,000 uncounted provisional ballots and an unspecified number of absentee votes still to be counted.
Too close to call
Ohio aside, New Mexico and Iowa remained too close to call in a race for the White House framed by a worldwide war against terror and economic worries at home.
But those two states were for the record -- Ohio alone had the electoral votes to swing the election to the man in the White House or his Democratic challenger.
Bush remained at the White House, while a GOP legal and political team dispatched overnight to Ohio in case Kerry made a fight of it.
Glitches cropped up in overwhelmed polling places as Americans voted in high numbers, fired up by unprecedented registration drives, the excruciatingly close contest and the sense that these were unusually consequential times.
"The mood of the voter in this election is different than any election I've ever seen," said Sangamon County, Ill., clerk Joseph Aiello. "There's more passion. They seem to be very emotional. They're asking lots of questions, double-checking things."
The country exposed its rifts on matters of great importance in Tuesday's voting. Exit polls found the electorate split down the middle or very close to it on whether the nation is moving in the right direction, on what to do in Iraq, on whom they trust with their security.
Electoral map
The electoral map today looked much like it did before; the question mark had moved and little else.
Bush built a solid foundation by hanging on to almost all the battleground states he got last time. Facing the cruel arithmetic of attrition, Kerry needed to do more than go one state better than Al Gore four years ago; redistricting since then had left those 2000 Democratic prizes 10 electoral votes short of the total needed to win the presidency.
Florida fell to Bush again, close but no argument about it.
Bush's relentless effort to wrest Pennsylvania from the Democratic column fell short. He had visited the state 44 times, more than any other. Kerry picked up New Hampshire in perhaps the election's only turnover.
In Ohio, Kerry won among young adults, but lost in every other age group. One-fourth of Ohio voters identified themselves as born-again Christians, and they backed Bush by a 3-to-1 margin.
A sideline issue in the national presidential campaign, gay civil unions may have been a sleeper that hurt Kerry -- who strongly supports that right -- in Ohio and elsewhere. Ohioans expanded their law banning gay marriage, already considered the toughest in the country, with an even broader constitutional amendment against civil unions.
In all, voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments limiting marriage to one man and one woman.
In Florida, Kerry again won only among voters under age 30. Six in 10 voters said Florida's economy was in good shape, and they voted heavily for Bush. Voters also gave the edge to Bush's handling of terrorism.
Voter turnout
Nationwide, with 98 percent of the precincts reporting, 112 million people had voted -- up from 105 million in 2000. Bush was ahead in the popular vote, which he lost in 2000, and independent Ralph Nader was proving to be much less of a factor this year than four years ago.
Officials had eyes on whether Tuesday's turnout would rival the 1960 benchmark, when about two-thirds of eligible voters came out to back either Democrat John Kennedy or Republican Richard Nixon.
At least six states -- Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia -- and the District of Columbia set new voter-turnout highs, according to analysis by Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.
"On both sides, the presidency of George Bush was a lightning rod," he said. "For those who supported him, they supported him for traditional values, strong leadership, the war on terrorism and some rejection of things that the Democrats advocate," such as abortion rights and gay civil unions.
"On the other side, it was the war on Iraq, debt, the feeling he hadn't been candid with the American people, too conservative values and division in the country," Gans said.
When it comes to voting, the United States still has some distance to go to match the participation of voters in other democracies. But by U.S. standards, Tuesday shaped up as an impressive show.
In California, the estimated voter turnout was 12 million, a record for the state.
"It's a landslide of people coming out, which is nice," voter Theresa Cocco, 45, a business owner, said outside the Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach.
"It renews my faith in society."
Top issues
Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International suggested that slightly more voters trusted Bush to handle terrorism than Kerry. A majority said the country was safer from terrorism than in 2000, and they overwhelmingly backed Bush.
But many said things were going poorly in Iraq, and they heavily favored Kerry. And with nearly 1 million jobs lost in Bush's term, Kerry was favored by eight of 10 voters who listed the economy as a top issue.
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