Democrats in sight of a Senate supermajority

The 2008 elections could yet get more depressing for the Republicans. Following Barack Obama's victory, three Senate races still remain undecided. These results will determine whether or not Obama goes to Washington with a filibuster-proof Democratic advantage in the Senate.

The latest official count in Alaska puts Democrat Mark Begich ahead of long-time Republican Senator Ted Stevens - whom a court recently convicted of not disclosing gift donations - by just 814 votes: 132,196 to 131,382. The 30 per cent of the vote that is yet to be counted is expected to favour Begich.

In Minnesota, Republican Norm Coleman and satirist-turned-Democrat candidate Al Franken (pictured) have spent almost $40m of campaign funds, mainly on adverts slandering each other. It's a "bare-knuckle fight", says Patrick Condon on the Huffington Post, that makes it feel "like Election Day had never come and gone." Of the 3m votes cast, Coleman leads by only 200 and a painstaking manual recount is expected to take until mid-December. "We'll be having Thanksgiving turkey at campaign headquarters," said one member of Franken's team.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, there will be a run-off election, as neither incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss nor Democrat Jim Martin won 50 per cent of the vote in the initial contest. John McCain is expected to join Chambliss at a Friday rally, despite describing one anti-Democrat ad featuring Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden that the Chambliss campaign ran as "worse than disgraceful".

"Whether Mr. Obama himself will visit Georgia for Mr. Martin is a thorny question," say Brody Mullins and Alex Roth in the Wall Street Journal. If he did, the President-elect would risk "looking partisan at a time when he has promised to reach out to his political adversaries."

The Democrats need to win all three races to gain 60 of the 100 seats in Senate and achieve the coveted 'supermajority' they last had under Jimmy Carter in 1977. But, say Mullins and Roth, "even if Democrats fall short of 60 seats, each additional Senate seat could prove pivotal in the political tussles expected early in the Obama administration".

Conservative pundit Dick Morris is certainly concerned and suspects that Democrats will win at least two of the three races. "We can't do much about Minnesota and Alaska," he says, "but we sure can do a lot to hold onto the seat in Georgia. And it might just be that seat that makes the difference between being able to sustain a filibuster of Obama's socialist legislation and not."

The Republican party itself echoes those worries. Yesterday, a GOP spokeswoman said: "We are trying to get the message out to Republicans that the difference between a 57-seat majority and a 58-seat majority is huge".

LAST UPDATED 12:51 PM, NOVEMBER 13, 2008