"We are convinced that President Bush has won re-election," said White House chief of staff Andy

"We are convinced that President Bush has won re-election," said White House chief of staff Andy Card. But that conviction did not sway Democrats, who insisted Kerry was still in contention for Ohio's decisive cache of 20 electoral votes.
And so the nation faced another mystery at sunrise, just as it had in the tangled dawn of Election 2000.
"We will fight for every vote," John Edwards, Kerry's running mate, told supporters in Boston early today in the first stirrings of a legal struggle. "We've waited four years for this victory. We can wait one more night."
Declaring victory
Bush himself planned to declare victory before long. Card, speaking shortly before dawn, said the president delayed that statement to "give Senator Kerry the respect of more time to reflect on the results of this election."
That certainty came from Bush having been declared the winner of Nevada -- and the campaign declaring itself the winner in Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico, where votes were still being tallied. Furthermore, Card said, Bush had racked up a 3.5 million-vote advantage over Kerry, totaling "more votes than any presidential candidate in our country's history."
"This all adds up to a convincing Electoral College victory, as well as a strong endorsement of President Bush by his fellow Americans in the popular vote," Card said.
Re-election would spare Bush a couple of indignities: He would not repeat his father's failure to earn a second term in the Oval Office and he would not become the nation's first wartime president to be booted from office.
It would also be an endorsement of the president's no-apologies, full-steam-ahead brand of governing, an approach he applied to everything from aggressive tax cutting to a pre-emptive war in Iraq.
More votes to count
As dawn broke today, Bush led Kerry in Ohio by about 135,000 votes after an Election Day of high turnout and long lines that had some voters casting ballots long after midnight.
But the heavy voting also delayed a final count of crucial ballots: At least 54 counties still had some uncounted absentee votes.
An Associated Press survey of election boards found about 140,000 provisional ballots in Ohio, cast by people whose names don't show up on regular poll lists.
But Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell estimated the number could be as high as 175,000.
Still unknown was the number of provisional ballots in Lucas and Summit counties, large urban centers that lean Democratic.
A new canvass was taking place today
Kerry could win if he did extremely well among provisional voters, but it would mean taking more than the 48.5 percent of regularly cast ballots he finished the night with.
Under Ohio law, provisional ballots are counted 10 days after the election.
With all precincts reporting, unofficial results found Bush had 2,794,346 votes, or 51 percent, while Kerry had 2,658,125, or 48.5 percent.
Election law specialists said either side could file lawsuits today to try to get the best footing for evaluating and counting provisional or absentee ballots.
"There are two questions here," said George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton. "One is how to develop uniform standards" for reviewing the ballots, and the other is to decide how generous those uniform standards should be, Overton said.
Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for Kerry in Ohio, said: "We think that a good bit of those voters will be our voters."
"We think that is more than enough voters to win the state," Palmieri said. "Those votes have to be counted before we know who won the state."
Legal fights
Ohio State University law professors said numerous potential legal fights loom:
* Disputes about which provisional ballots and absentee ballots are legitimate and should be counted.
* Disputes about inconsistent rules from precinct to precinct in counting provisional ballots.
* Further appeals about Election Day problems, especially in precincts with long lines.
* Recounts of all Ohio votes.
Republicans would try to preserve their lead by pressing for strict counting standards and firm deadlines, while Democrats could seek looser rules.
The GOP had already sued over Ohio provisional ballots even before polls closed Tuesday.
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.
For all the stumping in Ohio, nine in 10 voters had made up their minds before the last week, and they favored Bush. True to his reputation as a strong closer, Kerry performed better than Bush among those who decided late.
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.
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.
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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