World News 03-11-2004 Bush Has Won, Say Republicans who: George W Bush what: Expected to declare victory in presidential election where: Washington DC when: Today snippet: "President George W Bush is `convinced` he has won re-election to the White House but his Democrat rival John Kerry is still refusing to concede defeat," says the ITV news website. "President Bush is narrowly leading the race for the White House, but the final result appears to hinge on the state of Ohio, which is still too close to call," says the BBC. "Projections give Mr Bush 254 Electoral College votes and Senator Kerry 252." "The Bush camp say they are about to declare victory, claiming they have won the midwestern state," says Sky News. "One of President Bush`s senior campaign managers said the Democrats were `delusional` for not conceding defeat." "As more Ohio results trickled in this morning, the Bush lead appeared to be holding firm. With 97 per cent of precincts declared, he had 2,706,153 votes to Mr Kerry`s 2,580,462," says The Evening Standard`s political editor, Joe Murphy, reporting from Washington DC. "But 250,000 votes were still to be counted in largely Democrat areas and Mr Kerry insisted he could still win Ohio. There were warnings that the official tally could take 11 days." "In an exact replica of 2000, states that voted for Mr Bush four years ago voted for him again and states that voted for Al Gore went to Mr Kerry," says The Guardian`s Simon Jeffery. "The only change on 2000 came in vote-splitting Maine - one of two states that allocates electoral votes proportionally - when one of its four votes went to Mr Bush." "Americans went to the polls in numbers not seen since the 1960s," says The Scotsman. "Queues formed outside polling stations even before they opened and continued after they were due to close, with some pollsters predicting that ten million more people had cast their ballot than in 2000." [... more]

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