The winner of the US presidential race was still uncertain a day after the polls closed. In the Midwestern state of Ohio votes were too close to call. However, polling stations and at least two television networks put incumbent President George W. Bush ahead of democratic challenger John Kerry by 130,650 votes.

Everyone else is holding their breath and waiting to see the outcome. Kerry has refused to concede the state, which due to its 20 electoral college votes is pivotal for deciding who will be in the White House for the next four years. Excluding Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico, which have also not reported definitive votes, both candidates fall short of the 270 votes needed to win the race.

Projections early Wednesday gave Bush 28 states with 254 electoral votes, and Kerry 18 states and the federal capital, Washington, DC, for 242

A repeat of Florida 2000?

In shades reminiscent of the counting debacle four years ago, state and election officials in Ohio announced that final results might not come for two weeks, pending a count of more than 135,000 provisional ballots and an unknown number of absentee ballots.

"What I've told everybody is to take a deep breath and relax," Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said at a briefing.

Blackwell, a Republican, said it would be impossible to say who won Ohio if the difference between Bush and Kerry in the raw total vote was smaller than the number of outstanding provisional votes. The provisional ballots will not be counted until the team of election officials can first determine which ones are legitimate. Under Ohio law, that process can begin 11 days after ballots were cast.

"We know how to get the job done and have a very transparent process where people can see how those votes are being handled in a bipartisan way," Blackwell said in a statement intended to relieve worries that Ohio could turn into another Florida -- a reference to the long delays and disputes over counting votes during the 2000 presidential election.

Lawyers and party strategists have already descended on Ohio's capitol building in Columbus for potential legal battles and demonstrators took to the streets in the city to protest against what they called voter disenfranchisement.

Kerry refuses to concede

Meanwhile, both candidates claimed the state for themselves. "The vote count in Ohio has not been completed," Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement early Wednesday.

"We believe when (it has), John Kerry will win Ohio."

Vice presidential running-mate John Edwards vowed to fight until the very last vote had been counted.

But a top campaign manager in the Bush camp said Kerry was "delusional" for not conceding defeat.

"The Kerry campaign is delusional about their chances of overturning the vote of the people of Ohio," Bush campaign communications director Nicolle Devenish told AFP news agency.

Speaking to a gathering of Bush supporters in Washington, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card rejected claims that there was uncertainty over the election outcome. Bush has won a decisive re-election victory, he said. In Ohio, Card said that Bush had a lead of at least 140,000 votes -- a margin he described as "statistically insurmountable."

Card added that although Bush was convinced he had won both the popular vote and the electoral college, he had decided to hold off on a formal acceptance speech in order to give Kerry "time to reflect" on the results.