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Show - v - DAILY HEIAID si , -- , Wednesday, November 1 2004 US. PRESIDENT . Tlill IX&SSZl IHT12CT ... Independent candidate continues to lose steam J ' ... .. 5 j Ralph Nader ended his campaign the way he started it, as a maverick figure with a pointed message and a shrinking base of support. rxwn to 1 percent in eadyresuhs Tuesday night, the independent candidate was well below his 2000 performance, when he won 2.7 percent of the national vote as the Green Party nominee. Nader, who ran a campaign, wasn't . at all crestfallen Tuesday night, telling supporters at the National Press dub that "the NaderCame- - ' jo ticket represents the future." He contrasted himself and running mate Peter Camejo with the left-win- g Associated Press Democratic and Republican campaigns, which "represent the past" Instead of conceding defeat, Nader gave his1 stump speech, "We are just beginning to fight," he said. ', . Democrats, who charge that Nader's 2000 showing in Florida cost Democrat Al Gore the election, succeeded in keeping him off the ballot in such key battleground states as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Nader prevailed in getting on the ballot in Florida, with support from the Republican secretary of state. He was on the ballot in 34 states . ar this year, compared with 43 in 2000. The suspicion. Democrats said, was that Nader drew support from Kerry, so Republicans were eager to help him get on the ballot To many Democrats, that was a betrayal by someone who was with Democratic positions. essentially "This campaign is the last desperate act of a man seeking attention," said David Jones, spokesman for TheNaderFactorxom, a group of activists who joined to suppress the Nader vote in ' the battleground states. KRT Newspapers like-mind- "No matter what happens, I find it "There's just something refreshing about giving it your all and then saying the people will make the right decision and I believe I'm going to win." a great statement to the world about the power of democracy, the power of good argument." John F. Kerry George W. Bush lip - v ; Si i CHARLIE NEIBERGALL President Bush waves to supporters after speaking at a campaign rally in Sioux President Continued from Page 1 With more than 90 percent of precincts in Ohio, Bush led Kerry with 51 percent of the vote, and by 2 a.m. two networks projected that Bush would win the state. Republicans expanded their major-it- y in the Senate and appeared likely to do the same in the House. In Senate races, the GOP picked up open Democratic seats in Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina, while Democrats captured open Republican seats in Illinois and Colorado. In the most closely watched race. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle was narrowly trailing former House member John Thune (R) in South Dakota. With the election shaped by the fight against terrorism and the country deeply divided over the war in Iraq and the economy, energized voters poured out in extraordinary numbers nationwide, prodded by two campaigns that worked overtime to get their supporters to the polls. After a night of agonizing counting and mood changes inside the two campaigns, the 2004 campaign appeared to be a virtual rerun of the contest that brought Bush to the presidency four years ago. The Kerry campaign rested its hopes on provisional and other ballots still uncounted in Ohio, which Republicans said still would not be enough to carry the state. Polling places in some' battlegrounds, including Ohio, stayed open long after their scheduled closings, as officials struggled to handle a surge in turnout that some experts said could match the most recent and high-watmark set in 1992 perhaps exceed it. Despite threats of , legal challenges and other disrup' tions, voting generally appeared to go smoothly in most states. Early exit polls appeared td give Kerry a small advantage but as the night wore on and the actual vote tallies mounted, Democratic exuberance gave way to tense hours of counting and increasing pessimism. When the president fought off the Massachusetts senator's challenge in Florida, the state that produced the bitter 3&Jay recount battle four hard-foug- er II f : , I a"" r that election. But judging from exit polls, he had not expanded his coalition in any significant ways from four years ago, leading to the fight that was unfolding last night. After the 2000 election, the country united around Bush's presidency when terrorists attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. But that unity faded and, after the U.S.-le- d invasion of Iraq, the nation became polarized. Tuesday's electorate appeared as divided as it was four years ago. Bush and Kerry monitored the voting last night from their respective bases of operation in Washington and Massachusetts. Bush voted in Texas in the morning, stopped in Columbus, Ohio, in a show of support for his campaign workers there and returned to Washington in the after-noo- a i 31 1 (I '' IIIMIIM in TONY DEJAKAssociated Press Demoaatic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry greets supporters after speaking at an election eve rally in Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday. '. mo- Iibikj..: years ago, he significantly complicated Kerry's route to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Associated Press City, Iowa. ' ; Other states still undecided Wednesday morning included Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico and Nevada. All of those, with the exception of Nevada, went for the Democrats in 2000, Bush was leading New Mexico, while Kerry led in Wisconsin and Michigan. Nevada and Iowa were evenly split, and in Iowa the secretary of state announced the count would not be completed until later Wednesday. The pattern of the returns proved to be a virtual rerun of the 2000 election, with many of the states that created such drama in that contest once again keeping the candidates and the American people on edge as they watched returns roll in. By early Wednesday morning, only one state had switched sides, with Kerry taking back New Hampshire from the Republicans. That put Bush's electoral total at 249 to Kerry's 225. i Otherwise, there were no surprfefes1 candidates had spent most of their as the states began to report. Bustf0 1:tirjfe and money, Florida and Ohio, methodically secured his base in tlfrvSid on half a dozen other states that South and border states, capturing L could tip the balance: Wisconsin, his home state of Texas as well as Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico. As the Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, South counts came in, the campaigns strugCarolina, Mississippi, Louisiana Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky. He gled to examine the data for clues to the outcome. won Indiana and West Virginia, which was a Democratic bastion unKerry was running ahead of Bush til Bush won it four years ago. In the in New Hampshire, a state he hoped Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, to take away from the president. In he rolled to a series of victories. Wisconsin, which strategists in both camps saw as potentially decisive if " Kerry began a march across the country's northern tier, beginning in Kerry were to win Ohio, Kerry held lead over Bush with 65 a New England with victories in his home state of Massachusetts as well percent of the precincts counted. as in Connecticut, Rhode Island and According to National Election Pool interviews of voters leaving the Vermont. To that he added Maryland, the District, and several big polls, Bush appeared to be in a real fight to hold his presidency and prizes: California, New York, Pennavoid joining his father in being sylvania, New Jersey, which the Bush campaign looked at briefly, and swept out of office after a single term President George H.W. Bush Illinois, one of the few states in the lost his reelection bid in 1992 to Bill Midwest that was not closely contested. Clinton, and the current president But the two sides were focused on systematically sought to avoid the mistakes he believed cost his father , two of the biggest states where the one-poi- Bush spent the evening at the White House residence, surrounded by family and a few close advisers. Kerry began his day in La Crosse, Wis. He then flew to Boston to vote and returned to his Beacon Hill home. He spent four hours doing 38 satellite interviews with local television stations, trying to spur his to vote. His running mate joined in that effort. Three issues dominated the campaign and shaped Tuesday's vote: terrorism, the war in Iraq and the national economy. Kerry overwhelmingly won among those who said Iraq and the economy were the most important issues to them, while Bush won by a landslide among those who cited terrorism. Beyond those issues, a fifth of Tuesday's voters said moral values influenced their choice, and Bush won them by 4 to 1. No barometer has been watched more closely throughout the campaign than the president's approval rating,, often considered an indicator of the chance of winning Former presidents Ronald Reagan and Clinton were reelected with apwhile proval ratings in the mid-50former presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter lost when their approval ratings plunged to 40 percent sup-porte- rs or below. Tuesday, according to exit polls, Bush's approval rating stood at 51 percent, still occupying a political netherworld that provided evidence of how competitive the presidential race remained to the end i ' |