With Ohio looming as a Florida redux, President Bush prepared to declare re-election victory in the wee hours of Wednesday and Democratic rival John Kerry refused to concede.

After winning Nevada and pulling within 16 electoral votes of the 270 required for a second term, Bush was laying claim to Ohio’s 20 over Kerry’s objections. “We will not base our decision on a concession,” said Bush adviser Dan Bartlett.

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.”

[…]

“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.

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Here’s the stat breakdown as of now:

OHIO
100% of Precincts Reporting
George W. Bush 2,777,645 - 51 percent
John Kerry 2,632,547 - 48 percent

NATIONAL
95% of Precincts Reporting
George W. Bush 51% 56,732,387
John Kerry 48% 53,004,905

From Time:

But unlike 2000 when Gore conceded only to take back his words, the Kerry campaign issued a statement earlier this morning saying that they would not give up until every last vote had been counted. “The vote count in Ohio has not been completed. There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio,” said Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry-Edwards campaign manager. The reason? The math is still a bit fuzzy, but with 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Bush held a lead of about 144,000 votes. The Kerry camp is banking that the still-to-be-counted provisional ballots can make up the difference and the long-time senator from Massachusetts was not prepared to give up the fight.

The Republican camp quickly fired back. On NBC, Rudy Giuliani told Tom Brokaw that Kerry’s chances in Ohio were slim and that the Senator should avoid a repeat of the month-long legal challenges that happened in 2000.

In Boston, John Edwards made at statement at 2:30am, Wednesday morning. “We’ve waited four years for this victory, we can wait one more night,” said Edwards. He went on to say: “John Kerry and I made a promise to the American people that in this election every vote would count and every vote would be counted. Tonight, we are keeping our word. You deserve no less.”