Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, whose family has held a decades-long grip on one of the state’s two Senate seats, was in a surprisingly tight race Wednesday morning against an insurgent candidate, a Tea Party favorite who received the backing of Sarah Palin.
Ms. Murkowski significantly outspent her opponent, Joe Miller, and had appeared to have a comfortable lead heading into the Republican primary. But results Wednesday morning showed Mr. Miller ahead by nearly 3,000 votes, capturing more than 51 percent of the total votes cast.
Ms. Palin, a Republican and longtime political rival to the Murkowski family, endorsed Mr. Miller but took few obvious steps to support his candidacy beyond some posts on Facebook and Twitter.
The race may not be decided for a while. According to The Anchorage Daily News, the Alaska Division of Elections reported that only 7,600 of 16,000 absentee ballots that were requested had been returned as of Monday night, and those ballots were to be counted over the next two weeks. The victor will face Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka and a Democrat, in the November election.
Ms. Murkowski has been in the Senate since 2002, when her father appointed her to the seat he had held since 1981 so that he could become governor. She is battling for re-election in a political season in which another Senate incumbent, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, lost a primary after switching party affiliation to Republican from Democrat, setting off fears that a tide of anti-incumbency would spell doom for sitting lawmakers.
