WASHINGTON - Texas Gov. George W. Bush is on track to become the nation's 43rd president and Al Gore is wrestling with the withdrawal some Democrats are urging him to make in the shadow of a Supreme Court decision that ruled out more recounts in Florida's contested election.
Bush and running mate Dick Cheney are ''very pleased and gratified,'' former Secretary of State James A. Baker said Tuesday night, an understatement of historic proportions given the five tumultuous weeks since Election Day.
Gore closeted himself with advisers, but fellow Democrats were on television almost as soon as the court ruled, urging the vice president to bow out. The vice president ''should act now and concede,'' said Ed Rendell, general chairman of the party. ''Clearly the race for the presidency has come to an end. George Bush is going to be the next president of the United States,'' added Sen. Bob Torricelli, D-N.J.
The vice president's campaign manager, William Daley, issued a statement saying Gore and running mate Joseph Lieberman were reviewing the ruling and ''will address the court's decision in full detail at a time to be determined'' on Wednesday. But even so, as the night wore on, some top advisers privately were telling the vice president he had little choice but to drop his bid. ''That's where every discussion is headed,'' said one.
Whatever Gore decided after a night's sleep, it appeared that Bush had won the victory in the courts that he proclaimed so often he had won at the ballot box - and by a similarly small margin. Even so, his inauguration in January would give Republicans greater control over the government than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower sat in the White House. The GOP retained control of the House in the November elections. The Senate is split 50-50, but Cheney's election as vice president will give the GOP at least nominal control there, as well.
In their extraordinary late night ruling on Tuesday, the court agreed 7-2 to reverse the Florida Supreme Court's weekend decision that ordered a statewide recount of thousands of questionable ballots. A narrower 5-4 majority found there was no constitutionally acceptable procedure by which a new recount could take place before the midnight deadline for selection of presidential electors.
''Because it is evident that any recount seeking to meet the Dec. 12 date will be unconstitutional ... we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida ordering the recount to proceed.'' The electoral votes will be cast formally on Dec. 18, and counted in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
In the majority were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. In a forceful dissent, Stevens wrote: ''Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law.''
Souter and Breyer agreed there were constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida court, but did not rule out the possibility of the state court being able to fix them if allowed to do so and thus did not join the 5-4 majority.
Even before the ruling, Cheney, a veteran of the House as well as a former defense secretary, arranged to spend part of his day Wednesday in the Capitol, meeting with Republicans.
And in Tallahassee, where the GOP-controlled Legislature was moving to endorse its own slate of electors for Bush, the court's ruling gave pause.
''It appears we have finality,'' said Karen Chandler, a spokeswoman for Senate President John McKay. Chandler said her boss would decide Wednesday morning whether the Senate would cancel its plans to vote. The House gave its approval to the measure on Tuesday on a near party-line vote.
The ruling was the latest turning point in the nation's unbearably close election, a saga of counts, recounts, lawsuits by the dozens and two trips to the highest court in the land. For five tumultuous weeks, it has held Gore and Bush in limbo and the nation in thrall, and seared new terms into the nation's consciousness - ''dimpled chad'' most prominent among them.
That was one description for partially punched ballots, thousands of which were at the center of the contested election in Florida.
Without the state's 25 electoral votes, neither Bush nor Gore had the votes in the Electoral College needed to become president. With them, victory was a certainty.
The Bush campaign moved gingerly in the hours after the ruling, as if to avoid crowding Gore in his hour of defeat. ''This has been a long and arduous process for everyone involved on both sides,'' Baker told reporters in Florida, where he had commanded a postelection Republican campaign through several recounts and a fistful of lawsuits.
For his part, aides said in advance of the court ruling that if Bush prevailed, he would defer some transition moves, and move instead swiftly to show the country he could heal divisions created by the marathon election. Those steps, aides said, would include a speech to the nation, as well as meetings with congressional leaders, Democrats included, and perhaps President Clinton.
The legislative and legal maneuvering continued as states complied with a target date of Dec. 12 - Tuesday - for submitting their elector slates to officials in Washington. By day's end, 29 of the 50 states had done so, as had the District of Columbia.
There was no controversy, though, about any state but Florida. It is the only state where the election remains unsettled, and one big enough to make a difference to the outcome of the race for the White House.