Senate races

But, with votes still being counted in Alaska, she cautions: "I haven't had a sip of champagne yet."

For Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, Monday's vote count in Alaska's Senate race is likely to determine whether he remains alive in his fight against Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-Alaska) write-in effort.  

As of late Sunday, Murkowski was within 1,761 votes of Miller's total, but that number includes more than 7,000 write-in votes that the Miller campaign is challenging either due to incorrect spelling of Murkowski's name or an improperly completed ballot. 

The count continues Monday and the Murkowski campaign appears confident that it can overtake Miller's total, making the number of disputed write-in votes key. 

As it stands now, Miller retains a lead in the undisputed vote total with 87,517 votes to Murkowski's 78,697. But once the more than 7,000 challenged ballots are counted, Murkowski is within 1,761 votes of that total.  

The tally of write-in ballots has gone heavily in Murkowski's favor over the past several days with close to 90 percent of write-ins being counted, unchallenged, for the incumbent. That's right around the percentage her campaign predicted it would need to win in order to emerge from the write-in count with certain victory. 

There are still thousands of write-in ballots to be counted along with some 8,500 absentees, which will be counted this week.

If the number of disputed ballots ends up making the difference for Murkowski over Miller, expect the Republican nominee to forge ahead with a legal challenge — an attempt to have those ballots thrown out. 

Murkowski's campaign is billing Monday's count as the end of the line for Miller if the numbers keep trending in her direction. A Murkowski spokesman said late Sunday that their projections have the incumbent ending the count with a margin of "several thousand votes."

But the Alaska Senate candidate remained confident that military absentee ballots could turn the tide in his favor.

Less than two percent of the Republican Joe Miller's challenges to write-in ballots have been successful.

Alaska GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller said Thursday he received a contribution to his recount fund from Sarah Palin's political action committee. 

Miller told the ABC News webcast "Top Line" that SarahPAC contributed an unspecified amount to the fund on Wednesday and that the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent $20,000 to generally assist his efforts. 

The GOP nominee presumably trails incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who launched an independent write-in bid to remain in the Senate. 

Miller has sued to prevent Alaska election officials from counting ballots that misspell Murkowski's last name, a decision that came after Tea Party-backed candidate was shown to have made up ground on the write-in ballots cast. 

The donation comes after grumbling that the former GOP Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee had distanced herself from Miller, whom she endorsed in the primary against her rival Murkowski, after he came away from Election Day with less votes than the write-in candidates.

The fund's website says it has so far raised $146,000 for the recount.

This post was updated at 1:37 p.m.

Almost 90 percent of the first round of write-in ballots were unchallenged votes for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

The Tea Party favorite who might have cost Republicans a Senate seat won't rule out another run for office.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced Wednesday that he signed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new healthcare law.

The announcement is noteworthy for two reasons:

1) Hatch is expected to be the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee next Congress, and that committee played a major role in writing the healthcare legislation. Hatch made headlines last year during the bill-writing process when he quit the gang of seven senators discussing the legislation, saying there were too many aspects of the bill that he couldn't support.

2) Voters signaled their unhappiness with the new law by voting a record number of Democrats out of office last week. Hatch is up for reelection in 2012 and could face a primary challenge from the right. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has said he's thinking about running against the six-term senator. Plus, Hatch saw his home-state colleague, Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah), lose to a more conservative candidate in the primary process this year.

Hatch was a vocal opponent of the healthcare legislation during the debate process, vowing to "kill" it when it came to the Senate.

In explaining his friend-of-the-court brief, Hatch said: “The $2.6 trillion health law is an astonishing expansion of federal power and busts the limits that the Constitution imposes on the federal government."

A total of 20 states have signed onto the lawsuit, which originated in Florida. In October, a federal judge ruled the lawsuit could proceed. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also filed a friend-of-the-court brief and has urged other Republican senators to join him. 

-- This post was updated at 7:46 a.m.

Nevada Sen. John Ensign (R) is expected to face a difficult primary challenge if he seeks reelection in 2012, but a new poll shows he may not be as vulnerable as some observers believe.

Ensign leads two of his potential primary rivals in head-to-head match-ups surveyed by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm based in North Carolina. Although against Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Ensign is below 50 percent — a warning sign for an incumbent.

The two-term senator leads Heller 45 to 37 percent. Against Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki (R), Ensign's lead is 28 points — 55 to 27 percent. Krolicki opted not to run against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) last cycle, presumably because he was contemplating a challenge to Ensign.

Moreover, 64 percent of GOP primary voters in Nevada approve of Ensign's job performance, while only 23 percent disapprove. His approval rating is even higher with conservatives — 71 percent back Ensign's performance.

PPP polled 400 Nevada Republican primary voters Oct. 7-9. The survey has a 4.9 percent margin of error.

Ensign is considered vulnerable, in part, because he's being investigated by the FBI and the Senate Ethics Committee over his efforts to get lobbying work for the embittered husband of his former mistress. Ensign helped Doug Hampton, the husband of Cynthia Hampton, get a job with a lobbying firm, and his parents provided the Hamptons with a payment of nearly $100,000, which they described as a gift.

Ensign has denied any wrongdoing.

The Tea Party favorite wants a judge to bar the state division of elections from weighing voter intent on write-ins.