WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (AFP) - Notable US congressional contests on Tuesday:

US SENATE

SOUTH DAKOTA
South Dakota's congressional delegation has confounded Republican leaders for years.
The sparsely-populated state is staunchly Republican -- George W. Bush winning the state by 22 percentage points during the 2000 presidential election -- but currently all three of its members of Congress are Democrats.
South Dakota has one representative in the House and two in the Senate.
Tom Daschle is the state's leading politician and the Senate's top Democrat but he is facing the fight of his life to hold on to the seat he first won in 1986.
Daschle is in a neck-and-neck race with Republican challenger John Thune, who lost a close race for a the Senate seat just two years ago.
No Senate leader has lost re-election since 1952, but polls show Daschle with the barest of leads over Thune.

COLORADO
Democrat Ken Salazar, Colorado's attorney general, is hoping to become the state's first-ever Latino senator. If he wins he would also be the first Hispanic in the US Senate in more than a generation.
Salazar is running against Republican beer magnate Pete Coors, scion of the Coors Brewing empire, to succeed retiring Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the Senate's only Native American.
A conservative businessman, Coors' opposition to the death penalty got him into hot water with some Colorado voters when he said during a debate that he would oppose the execution of Osama bin Laden. He also drew criticism for saying he favored lowering the legal drinking age to 18.
Salazar's family has been farming in the same region of Colorado and New Mexico for generations, and he is seen as having an edge with the roughly 17 percent of Coloradans who share his Hispanic heritage.

FLORIDA
In Florida, a key battleground state, Democratic educator Betty Castor is in a neck-and-neck battle with Republican Mel Martinez, the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the George W. Bush administration.
If he wins, Martinez (along with Colorado's Salazar, should the Democrat prevail in Colorado) would be the first Hispanic in the Senate in many years.
Recent polls have given the edge to Castor, a former state education commissioner and university president.
Republican leaders are convinced Martinez's appeal as a cross-over candidate will carry the day for Floridians.
"He's going to have Republican support. He's going to get Hispanic support, and he's going to be a great United States senator," said Senator George Allen, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

ILLINOIS
Barack Obama, a relatively obscure Senate hopeful just a few months ago, burst onto the national scene by giving an electrifying keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in July.
A cinch to win the US Senate seat from Illinois, Obama is widely touted for a future leadership position in his party -- possibly even as a US presidential candidate.
In the weeks since he gave his speech, the charismatic 43-year-old of African and US heritage has come to have such star power that he has been recruited to travel to more than a dozen states to stump for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, as well as fellow congressional candidates.
"Barack Obama's importance to our party and our effort to recapture the United States Senate simply cannot be overstated," said Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The Republican's Illinois Senate campaign unraveled when candidate Jack Ryan withdrew over a sex scandal stemming from the release of steamy court records from a contentious divorce.
The Republicans reached several states away to recruit African-American conservative Alan Keyes, a Maryland radio talk show host, to be their standard bearer, but he has largely been rejected by Illinois voters and Obama has built a 45-point lead over Keyes.
Keyes and Obama are vying to replace retiring one-term Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald.

KENTUCKY
Democrat Dan Mongiardo was not expected to be much of a contender against popular Republican incumbent Jim Bunning in Kentucky.
But Bunning, 73, a former professional baseball player, squandered a double-digit lead after making what some have seen as bizarre and intemperate comments on the campaign trail, and now leads the Democrat by just a few points in the solidly-Republican state.
The Hall of Fame pitcher has been hounded by questions about his mental health. Republicans accuse Democrats of smear tactics, and say they are spreading rumors about Bunning's mental state as an act of desperation
Among Bunning's actions which raised eyebrows: he said Mongiardo looked like a son of Saddam Hussein. He later apologized for the remark.
He also aired TV commercials labeling Mongiardo a "Medicaid millionaire," featuring a luxurious home and a private jet. But it later turned out that neither the home nor the jet belonged to Mongiardo.
Mongiardo, 44, a doctor and state legislator, is receiving a fresh infusion of cash from the Democratic Party, which likes his chances of defeating the Republican incumbent.

ALASKA
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski was appointed to her seat by her father, Frank Murkowski, who named her to complete his unexpired term when he was elected Alaska's governor in 2002.
Even in Congress, where relatives regularly assume vacated seats, the move was seen as a naked display of nepotism. It has dogged Murkowski on the campaign trail and given the Democrats their best shot at retaking a seat in the Senate.
Solidly Republican Alaska has not elected a Democratic senator in some 40 years, but Murkowski is in a close fight with Democrat Tony Knowles, the state's former governor.
Her father's political fortunes are also on the decline, and he is now seen as one of Alaska's least popular figures. A popular bumper sticker around the state reads, "Yo, Lisa! Who's yer daddy?!"

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

LOUSIANA
Indian-American Bobby Jindal lost his bid last year to become Louisiana's governor, but is a shoo-in in his current House race.
A Republican, Jindal gained the support of right-wing white voters by emphasizing his Catholic faith and socially conservative agenda while downplaying his ethnic heritage.
The 33-year-old son of Punjabi immigrants was defeated in the race for governor last year by then-Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Blanco.
Jindal is now running for the House in suburban New Orleans.
A poll by Southern Media and Opinion Research places Jindal, with 65 percent support, comfortably ahead of his nearest rival, State Representative Steve Scalise.
A large majority of the voters polled were white, demonstrating his cross-over appeal in a state where political allegiances are often formed partly on the basis of ethnicity.

TEXAS
Texas Democrats and Republicans are now evenly represented in the House with 16 seats each. But under a controversial redistricting plan engineered by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Republicans could control as many as 22 seats after next week's election.
A Republican-redrawing of the election map could cost the Democrats as many as six House seats including that of longtime Representative Martin Frost of Dallas, whose district was reconfigured into a predominately Republican enclave.
The US Supreme Court reopened the bitter Texas redistricting feud two weeks ago by ordering a federal district court to reconsider the Republican-drawn map, which had been approved earlier by a three-judge federal panel in Austin.
The ruling will have no effect on the November 2 election, although it may overturn the redistricting plan down the road.

10/31/2004 02:55 GMT - AFP