WASHINGTON – President Bush won a second term from a divided andanxious nation, his promise of steady, strong wartime leadershiptrumping John Kerry’s fresh-start approach to Iraq and joblessness.After a long, tense night of vote counting, the Democrat calledBush Wednesday to concede Ohio and the presidency, The AssociatedPress learned.

Kerry ended his quest, concluding one of the most expensive andbitterly contested races on record, with a call to the presidentshortly after 11 a.m. EST, according to two officials familiar withthe conversation.

The victory gave Bush four more years to pursue the war onterror and a conservative, tax-cutting agenda.

He also will preside over expanded Republican majorities inCongress.

“Congratulations, Mr. President,” Kerry said in the conversationdescribed by sources as lasting less than five minutes. One of thesources was Republican, the other a Democrat.

The Democratic source said Bush called Kerry a worthy, tough andhonorable opponent. Kerry told Bush the country was too divided,the source said, and Bush agreed. “We really have to do somethingabout it,” Kerry said according to the Democratic official.

Kerry placed his call after weighing unattractive optionsovernight. With Bush holding fast to a six-figure lead inmake-or-break Ohio, Kerry could give up or trigger a struggle thatwould have stirred memories of the bitter recount in Florida thatpropelled Bush to the White House in 2000.

Kerry’s call was the last bit of drama in a campaign full ofit.

He acted, hours after White House chief of staff Andy Carddeclared Bush the winner and White House aides said the presidentwas giving Kerry time to consider his next step.

One senior Democrat familiar with the discussions in Boston saidKerry’s running mate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, wassuggesting that he shouldn’t concede.

The official said Edwards, a trial lawyer, wanted to make sureall options were explored and that Democrats pursued them asthoroughly as Republicans would if the positions were reversed.

Advisers said the campaign just wanted one last look foruncounted ballots that might close the 136,000-vote advantage Bushheld in Ohio.

An Associated Press survey of the state’s 88 counties foundthere were about 150,000 uncounted provisional ballots and anunspecified number of absentee votes still to be counted.

Ohio aside, New Mexico and Iowa remained too close to call in arace for the White House framed by a worldwide war against terrorand economic worries at home.

Those two states were for the record – Ohio alone had theelectoral votes to swing the election to the man in the White Houseor his Democratic challenger.

Bush remained at the White House, a GOP legal and political teamdispatched overnight to Ohio in case Kerry made a fight of it.

Republicans already were celebrating election gains in Congress.They picked up at least three seats in the Senate, and a fourth waswithin their grasp, in Alaska. And they drove Democratic leader TomDaschle from office.

That will be the state of play on Capitol Hill for the next twoyears, with the chance of a Supreme Court nomination fight loomingalong with legislative battles.

Republicans also re-enforced their majority in the House.

Glitches galore cropped up in overwhelmed polling places asAmericans voted in high numbers, fired up by unprecedentedregistration drives, the excruciatingly close contest and the sensethat these were unusually consequential times.

“The mood of the voter in this election is different than anyelection I’ve ever seen,” said Sangamon County, Ill., clerk JosephAiello. “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 import inTuesday’s voting. Exit polls found the electorate split down themiddle or very close to it on whether the nation is moving in theright direction, on what to do in Iraq, on whom they trust withtheir security.

The electoral map Wednesday looked much like it did before; thequestion mark had moved and little else.

Bush built a solid foundation by hanging on to almost all thebattleground states he got last time. Facing the cruel arithmeticof attrition, Kerry needed to do more than go one state better thanAl Gore four years ago; redistricting since then had left those2000 Democratic prizes 10 electoral votes short of the total neededto win the presidency.

Florida fell to Bush again, close but no argument about it.

Bush’s relentless effort to wrest Pennsylvania from theDemocratic column fell short. He had visited the state 44 times,more than any other. Kerry picked up New Hampshire in perhaps theelection’s only turnover.

In Ohio, Kerry won among young adults, but lost in every otherage group. One-fourth of Ohio voters identified themselves asborn-again Christians and they backed Bush by a 3-to-1 margin.

A sideline issue in the national presidential campaign, gaycivil unions may have been a sleeper that hurt Kerry in Ohio andelsewhere. Ohioans expanded their law banning gay marriage, alreadyconsidered the toughest in the country, with an even broaderconstitutional amendment against civil unions.

Voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments limitingmarriage to one man and one woman.

In Florida, Kerry again won only among voters under age 30. Sixin 10 voters said Florida’s economy was in good shape, and theyvoted heavily for Bush. Voters also gave the edge to Bush’shandling of terrorism.

In Senate contests, Rep. John Thune’s victory over Daschlerepresented the first defeat of a Senate party leader in are-election race in more than a half century. Republicans wereassured of at least 53 seats in the coming Senate, two more thannow.

Republicans made gains in the House, too, where they hadprevailed for a decade.

With 98 percent of the precincts reporting, 112 million peoplehad voted – up from 105 million in 2000. Bush was ahead in thepopular vote, which he lost in 2000, and independent Ralph Naderwas proving to be much less of a factor this year than four yearsago.

Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the televisionnetworks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky Internationalsuggested that slightly more voters trusted Bush to handleterrorism than Kerry. A majority said the country was safer fromterrorism than in 2000, and they overwhelmingly backed Bush.

Many said things were going poorly in Iraq, and they heavilyfavored 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 atop issue.