c

It appears that Democrat Michael Bennet will remain Colorado’s junior Senator.

In the tightest Senate race in the country, Bennet led challenger Ken Buck by .4 percentage points, or about 7,000 votes, Wednesday morning. That led the Denver Post to declare him the winner.The margin is under the .5% threshold to trigger an automatic recount. There are still votes to be counted -- but they come primarily from uber-liberal Boulder County and suburban Arapahoe, which favored Bennet over Buck.

Bennet, the former superintendent of Denver’s school district, was appointed by Gov Bill Ritter in January of 2009 to fill out the term of Senator Ken Salazar, whom President Obama tapped to be Secretary of the Interior. Bennet had never held elected office before and the Colorado race became the nation’s most expensive, with nearly $30 million spent by outside interest groups.

Buck, a conservative district attorney from Northern Colorado, won the Republican nomination with the backing of tea party groups. Analysts warned he may be too conservative to oust the vulnerable incumbent.