Senate, Midterm Elections | featured news

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was officially named the winner of Alaska's U.S. Senate race Thursday, following a legal battle that lasted longer than the write-in campaign she waged to keep her job.

The Alaska Supreme Court has upheld a lower court decision in the disputed U.S. Senate race, saying the state correctly counted write-in votes for Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

As Senator Lisa Murkowski flew home to Alaska on Wednesday, The Associated Press declared her the winner of her long-shot write-in bid for re-election. Neither the Murkowski campaign nor the campaign of her competitor, Joe Miller, a Tea Party favorite who was backed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, made an immediate comment.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's campaign on Thursday accused observers for rival Joe Miller of making petty challenges in the counting of voters' write-in ballots in an attempt to tilt the Alaska Senate race in their favor.

Tea party backed Senate candidates in several states significantly underperformed more establishment Republican candidates running on the same ballot last Tuesday, data that provides further evidence that the tea party movement may have cost the GOP seats.

Rows of gray plastic tables fill a sprawling room that overlooks the snow-covered peaks of this port town, where America will begin to learn the answers Wednesday to the final pressing questions of the elections of 2010: Do the people of Alaska know how to color, and do they know how to spell?

Last week's election was bad for Democrats. The next one could be worse. Senate Democrats running in 2012 will be trying to hold their jobs in states where Republicans just scored major congressional and gubernatorial victories - Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Virginia.

First, she was the shoo-in. Then she was the underdog. Now, in the closing moments of a quirky midterm election season, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) appeared to be on the verge of making history as the first successful write-in candidate for Senate in more than 50 years.

Many Nevada Latinos and others were motivated by 'tea party' Republican Sharron Angle's racially charged rhetoric in the Senate race.

President Barack Obama said Tuesday's elections, in which Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and gained seats in the Senate, signaled that Americans were frustrated with the pace of economic recovery.