Bush Camp Declares Victory

Mr. Bush now has a total of 254 electoral votes, compared to 242 for his Democratic challenger. In the popular vote, Mr. Bush leads Kerry 51 percent to 48 percent.

In his remarks, Card said the president maintains an insurmountable lead in Ohio. In a clear move to pressure Kerry to concede, he said the White House wants to give the Democrat time to reflect on the numbers.

Card said Mr. Bush was getting some sleep and would make a public statement later in the day.

Ceding nothing, Kerry dispatched running mate John Edwards to tell supporters in Boston: "We've waited four years for this victory. We can wait one more night."

Edwards' 92-word statement was an eerie echo of 2000 when advisers to both Mr. Bush and Democrat Al Gore told supporters that the race was too close to call — setting off a 36-day recount and a Supreme Court ruling that put Mr. Bush in office.

"We will fight for every vote," Edwards said, borrowing a line from Gore. Both campaigns considered sending political and legal teams to Ohio, already the scene of dueling lawsuits over provisional ballots.

Inside the Bush campaign, an intense debate waged into the wee hours as some aides said parachuting teams into Ohio would ensure a political stalemate in a state Mr. Bush believes he has already won.

On a big night for Republicans, the GOP retained control of Congress, winning a string of Senate seats in the South and handing a shocking defeat to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota. Republicans also maintained their grip on the House of Representatives.

Mr. Bush swept the South with wins in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky. He also did well in the West and Midwest, capturing Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Montana and Alaska.

Kerry dominated the East and Northeast with victories in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia, as well as his home state of Massachusetts. He also carried Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota in the Midwest, along with the Western states of California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii.

In the fight for control of the Senate, Democratic State Sen. Barack Obama, a political star in the making, easily captured a formerly Republican seat in Illinois, and will be the only black among 100 senators when the new Congress convenes in January. "I am fired up," he told cheering supporters.

But the GOP grabbed several seats in the South that had been held by Democrats, guaranteeing continued Republican dominance of the upper chamber.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, and CBS News estimates the chamber will remain under Republican control.

Eleven gubernatorial contests were also decided Tuesday, along with 5,800 legislative seats in 44 states.

Among the notable ballot measures, 11 states delivered a resounding rejection of same-sex marriage, approving constitutional amendments limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

In the presidential race, exit poll data suggests that Mr. Bush's emphasis on two themes - the war on terror and moral values - resonated with voters and negated voter unhappiness with the state of the economy and the war in Iraq.

The exit polls also suggest that young people played a greater role in this year's presidential race than four years earlier. In 2000, 17 percent of voters nationwide were between the ages of 18 and 29. They broke nearly evenly between the major party candidates, with 48 percent supporting Gore and 46 percent supporting Mr. Bush.

This election the impact appears to be much more striking. Although they have not turned out in greater numbers nationally, they leaned heavily toward Kerry, giving him a double-digit lead over the president among this age group.

The results were even more dramatic in several key battleground states. Roughly one in five voters in Ohio was under 30, supporting Kerry by roughly 20 percent over Mr. Bush. About one in six voters in Florida are between 18 and 29, leaning toward Kerry by about 20 percentage points. In Pennsylvania, more than 20 percent of voters were under 30, and they voted for Kerry over Mr. Bush by nearly twenty-five percentage points.

But the president's popularity with older voters undercut Kerry's appeal to the young. Fifty-three percent of voters age 60 and over cast their ballots for Mr. Bush.

[CBS News National Exit Poll results are based on interviews with 11,027 voters. The sampling error is plus or minus 1 point. Exit Polls from specific states are based on interviews with at least 1930 voters, and could have a sampling error of as much as plus or minus 2 points.]

With polls deadlocked and interest in the race exceptionally high, voter turnout was heavy. Long lines were reported at precincts from Florida and North Carolina to West Virginia and Michigan.

"We even had people waiting in line before we opened at 6:30 a.m.," said Wayne County Clerk Robert Pasley in Wayne, W.Va. "In some places, there was more than a dozen people waiting, and that's heavy."

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 weren't significant. "So far, it's no big, but lots of littles," said elections expert Doug Chapin.

"My hope of course is that this election ends tonight," Mr. Bush told reporters, referring to the expected legal challenges in some districts.