Latest on Undecided US Senate Races

One of the four yet to be determined United States Senate contests from Tuesday 3 November was settled on Thursday 5 November in Oregon where GOP incumbent US Senator Gordon Smith conceded defeat to Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley. Merkley's victory gives Democrats 57 seats at this point for the upcoming 111th Congress to be sworn in and seated on 3 January 2009.

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Three other states still have results that remain to be finalized with outcomes uncertain.

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Georgia has the most orderly process in place as there will be a two candidate runoff election on Tuesday 2 December between Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin. Chambliss defeated Martin in the general election by over 111,000 votes but the presence of Libertarian Allen Buckley in the race and his amassing of over 127,000 votes, more than 3 % of the total, kept Chambliss from getting the required 50 % to win the election outright. A large number of campaigners from the Obama presidency are poised to come to The Peach State to lend their support and expertise to the Martin campaign, and i is anticipated Willard "Mitt" Romney, Mike Huckabee, and even Sarah Palin will come south to Georgia to campaign for Chambliss. Georgians are in for over three weeks of an intense besiegement from these two renewed campaigns.

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In Minnesota, GOP incumbent Norm Coleman leads Democratic challenger Al Franken by only 236 votes out of the over 2.861 million votes cast. A recount of all votes in the election will commence next week.

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And in Alaska, embattled GOP incumbent Ted Stevens leads Democratic challenge Mark Begich by 3353 votes out of the over 209,000 cast. It is expected that between 14,000 and 15,000 absentee ballots and military ballots remain to be to counted, which could take two weeks and perhaps longer. This seat will be in limbo for the time being.

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Democrats could win all three seats, giving them 60 in the US Senate. But it will take a reversal of results thus far in order for that to happen. Expect Republicans to retain at least one of these three and all three is certainly not out of the question.

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