The defeat of Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator, when Alaska’s senate race was finally declared on Tuesday night chalked up one more seat for a Democratic majority grasping for the magical 60-seat threshold that would immunize it from opposition filibuster. The Democrats now have 58 seats with two races – in Minnesota and Georgia – yet to be declared.

But the departure of Mr Stevens, who heard the news on his 85th birthday, also marked the ending of an era in the US senate. A former chairman of the all-powerful Senate appropriations committee, Mr Stevens used his expertise of the upper body’s arcane and complex spending approvals process to channel outsized financial flows to his home state – $9bn alone last year even after he had stepped down from the role.