State Highlights

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who was convicted eight days before the election on seven felony counts, lost his bid for a seventh term as final ballots were counted on Nov. 18.

Mr. Stevens, a Republican, was trailing his Democratic challenger, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, by 3,724 votes out of more than 315,000 cast after state election officials counted about 25,000 absentee and other outstanding ballots.

Only an estimated 2,500 ballots remained to be counted the following week, according to Gail Fenumiai, the state elections director.

"I am humbled and honored to serve Alaska in the United States Senate," Mr. Begich said. "It's been an incredible journey getting to this point, and I appreciate the support and commitment of the thousands of Alaskans who have brought us to this day."

Mr. Stevens did not immediately concede the race. He could request a recount, but he would have to pay for it if the current vote margins hold.

The ballots remaining to be counted include overseas voters, special absentee ballots given to people who planned to be traveling out of state on Election Day or who live in remote parts of the state. The election will not be certified until early December.

In an initial count after Election Day, Mr. Stevens had led Mr. Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, by 3,257 votes. Republicans said at the time that traditional voting patterns among absentee voters favored Mr. Stevens holding on to win, but Mr. Begich noted that he had made a concerted effort to win absentee voters. More than 90,000 ballots have been counted since Election Day.

Mr. Stevens's longtime colleague and sole Alaskan member of the House, Representative Don Young, won his 19th term. Mr. Young, a Republican first elected in 1973, has also been under federal investigation. He had led Ethan Berkowitz, a Democrat and former state lawmaker, by about 51 to 45 percent as absentee, early and questioned ballots continued to be counted. In the state Senate, Democrats picked up enough seats to get a 10-10 split with the Republicans, who still control the House in Juneau.

Mr. Stevens, a 40-year incumbent and the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, was convicted Oct. 27 on seven felony counts of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations. Two days later, Mr. Stevens returned to Alaska for a six-day campaign sprint in which he insisted to voters that he had been wrongfully prosecuted and would have his conviction overturned.

Many national Republicans called on Mr. Stevens to resign, including Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. Some Senate leaders threatened to expel Mr. Stevens if he stayed in office and lost his appeal of his conviction. Yet the state Republican Party encouraged voters to keep Mr. Stevens in office, and the senator's campaign paid for a blitz of final advertisements, including a two-minute commercial on the eve of the election.

Mr. Stevens said more than once in the last week before the election that he had not been convicted, a reference to the fact that a conviction is not formal until sentencing, which has not yet taken place. He told voters at one small rally that his situation was similar to that of the lacrosse players at Duke University who were wrongly accused of sexual assault in 2006.

"Those fellows went through an ordeal like mine until they discovered that it was actually a scheme of the prosecution," he said. "The abuse of power was overwhelming."

Mr. Stevens suggested that if he were to lose his appeal, he would resign rather than face a possible expulsion from the Senate.

"He said he would do what's right for Alaska," a spokesman for the Senator, Aaron Saunders, said on election night. At the same time, Mr. Saunders questioned whether senators could muster the two-thirds vote necessary for expulsion.

Mr. Stevens, whose 85th birthday was Nov. 18, is a revered figure in Alaska, known for bringing billions of dollars in federal spending to the state. He took office just nine years after Alaska entered the union.

Mr. Begich, the son of a former Alaska congressman, Nick Begich, a Democrat who was killed in a plane crash in 1972, ran a careful campaign in which he rarely criticized Mr. Stevens. Instead, he let consistently bad news about the accusations surrounding Mr. Stevens do its own damage. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also spent heavily on an advertisement accusing Mr. Stevens of corruption.

Mr. Begich would be the first Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress in three decades. He says he will steer a different course from other Democrats in Washington on many issues including favoring drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Like Mr. Stevens, Mr. Young is known for bringing home millions of dollars in federal money. Mr. Young had stopped short of declaring victory on election night, but he was clearly optimistic based on the results tallied shortly before midnight.

"I don't listen to the polls, never have," Mr. Young said while supporters chanted around him at the Egan Center. "The people believe in me."

Mr. Stevens's loss breaks up Alaska's three-member, all-Republican delegation. Senator Lisa Murkowski is the state's junior senator. WILLIAM YARDLEY

Updated: Nov. 18, 2008