A look at some of the winners and losers in the race for the Senate
LOST SEAT- Elizabeth Dole (Nth Carolina, Rep) , former Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Labour, former president of the American Red Cross and candidate for president, was elected senator from North Carolina in 2002.
Married to Senator Bob Dole and campaigned with him when he was nominated for vice-president in 1976.
Dole started off quietly in the Senate, as Hillary Rodham Clinton had two years before.
On national issues, she had a conservative voting record and generally supported the Bush administration.
IN THE BALANCE- Al Franken (Minnesota, Dem), former Saturday Night Live star, satirist and author, liberal radio host.
Franken candidacy looks like an odd balancing act between being the guy people expect to be hilarious and crassly partisan and being a candidate voters need to be convinced will be earnest and sedate enough to look right in the Senate.
Minnesotans had come to understand the bid, was anything but a joke.
Since Franken, who grew up in Minnesota, announced his candidacy in February 2007, he has travelled the state frenetically, attending hundreds of forums and luncheons and rallies and leaving even his critics conceding that he has worked awfully hard.
LOST SEAT- John E Sununu (New Hampshire, Rep), elected in 2002 when he defeated the state's senior senator and its governor, he was the youngest member of the Senate.
He grew up in Salem, on the Massachusetts border, one of eight children of John H Sununu, who was elected to the first of three terms as governor in 1982 and served as White House chief of staff from 1989 to 1991.
In the Senate Sununu's voting record has moved closer to the centre than during his House years.
SEAT HELD- Mitch McConnell (Kentucky, Rep) the state's senior senator, is the Senate Minority Leader; his wife Elaine Chao is Secretary of Labour, the only original member of the Bush cabinet still in office.
McConnell grew up in Alabama, where he overcame polio, and at age 13 moved to Louisville.
He has been in politics almost his whole career.
He outpolled millionaire businessman Bruce Lunsford to retain his seat. He is a master strategist and could be a thorn in the side of the Democrats. "Winston Churchill once said the most exhilarating feeling in life is to be shot at and missed," Mr McConnell said.
"After the last few months I think he really meant to say there is nothing more exhausting. This election has been both."
IN THE BALANCE- Ted Stevens (Alaska, Rep) is the longest-serving Republican senator in the United States and is regarded as a formidable fixer for the state. His work has not gone unappreciated - in January 2000, he was named Alaskan of the Century.
But his conviction last month for concealing more than $250,000 in gifts from an oil services company put a safe seat into jeopardy.
He was urged unsuccessfully by senior party figures, including John McCain, to stand down.