'Write-in' outsider triumphs over Palin's Tea Party pick

Republican senator Lisa Mur-kowski has become the first US Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a so-called write-in campaign, emerging victorious over her Tea Party-backed rival after a week of counting votes. She persuaded voters in Alaska to write her name on the mid-term ballot, after she lost out on her party's nomination to Tea Party "insurgent" Joe Miller.

In winning, Ms Murkowski has dealt a blow to Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate whose support for Mr Miller was not enough to get him elected in her own state. Ms Murkowski's father was beaten in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary by Ms Palin, adding to the icy relationship between the two families.