Salazar defeated Republican beer executive Pete Coors, who garnered 48 percent of the vote, in his bid for the Senate.
Despite a blanket of snow falling in some parts of Colorado on the Monday before the election, voters went in droves to the polls to vote in the tense contest.
Although the state leans Republican, Salazar was able to capture the moderate vote.
"I think (Coors) may be more in there for the money than for the people," Republican Cheri Applegate of Colorado Springs told the Denver Post after voting against her party line for Salazar. "Sometimes you just can't stick Republican all the way. ... I think Salazar is more for the people."
High spending and negative advertising characterized the race between the beer company chairman and the seasoned politician.
Spending over $15 million combined, it became the most expensive U.S. Senate race in all of Colorado's history.
And, even though the two candidates promised to keep the race clean, negative advertisements and allegations came quickly and heavily.
Outside interest groups accused Coors of having a shaky environmental record, while other groups portrayed Salazar as being a champion of trial lawyers.
Salazar, a fifth-generation Colorado rancher, is in his second term as attorney general. He ran his campaign as a moderate Democrat, supporting gun rights, the death penalty and the USA Patriot Act with "minor changes."
-- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources
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November 3, 2004, 1:30am EST
