Minnesota

State Highlights

The bitterly contested Senate race between the Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman, and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken, the political humorist and former "Saturday Night Live" cast member, is not over yet.

The number of votes separating them is so tiny — Mr. Coleman leads by fewer than 500 out of nearly 2.9 million cast — that the state rule for an automatic recount was set off. State officials say a recount will not begin until mid-November and could take weeks. Each ballot will be inspected manually.

The race had been unremittingly negative, with Mr. Coleman hitting Mr. Franken's decades of edgy humor and holding a lead until October, when the national financial crisis reshaped races around the country. An independent candidate, Dean Barkley, drew 15 percent of the vote. The other two candidates, James Niemackl of the conservative Constitution Party and the Libertarian Charles Aldrich, garnered far more votes than the margin separating the leaders.

In other races, the Republican incumbent in the Sixth District, Representative Michele Bachmann, overcame a challenge from the Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg. Her lead evaporated after an embarrassing Oct. 17 appearance on the MSNBC program "Hardball" in which she said that Barack Obama "may have anti-American views." As her fortunes dipped, Mr. Tinklenberg's rose, with about $1 million in contributions from around the nation.

In the Third District, State Representative Erik Paulsen, a Republican, defeated Ashwin Madia, a Democratic lawyer whose parents came to the United States from India and who served with the Marines in Iraq. The seat is being vacated by Jim Ramstad, a Republican. JOHN SCHWARTZ

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