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U.S. Rep. Don Young said Wednesday that he expects to win his ultra-close re-election race, despite only recently taking the tiniest of leads.

"We expect to be ahead when the absentee votes are done," he told reporters Wednesday.

"I'm pleased with the votes as they stand. No one ever said this would be easy," he said.

Young predicted his lead would expand to 1 to 2 percent in the final count.

The 26-term congressman may have managed to fend off a challenge from one of the state's top politicians, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who had the backing of Gov. Sarah Palin, the state's most popular politician.

Despite Parnell leading most of the evening as early returns from places such as Juneau came in, when Bush votes came in Young pulled ahead.

Parnell led Young by 125 votes in Juneau's Mendenhall Valley district and another 44 votes downtown.

Parnell was hanging on to the statewide lead until about 4 a.m. Wednesday when Bush precincts began to be counted.

Young credited those communities with his apparent victory.

Rural Alaska said, "We need Don Young back in Washington, D.C. He's our congressman," Young explained.

Young ran a feisty campaign against Parnell, which he credited for his coming from behind after early polling showed Parnell heading for an easy victory.

Young said he considers his tiny margin to be a great victory, considering how far behind he once was.

Parnell issued a statement Wednesday saying the race was too close to call and that he would wait patiently for all absentee voted to be counted, which could take two weeks.

Young led Parnell 45,538 to 45,387 Wednesday afternoon. That's 152 votes, or 0.16 percent difference. Parnell said there are an estimated 4,000 absentee ballots to be counted, and a state-funded recount is possible if the margin is less than 0.5 percent of the votes cast.

Young remained feisty at his Wednesday news conference, saying he would soon head back to Washington D.C., where he planned to work on obtaining earmarks asked for by the people of Alaska.

Young said despite fears he would lose to Democrat Ethan Berkowitz in the general election, results from the primary indicated he'd stack up well against the former House Minority leader.

"I got more votes than the Democratic nominee," Young said. Young also said he'd been endorsed by Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, the third Republican in the race.

Berkowitz spokesman David Shurtleff said the Democratic challenger would pick up votes from supporters of whoever was the Republican loser.

"I think we have tremendous appeal, whoever the winner is," he said.

"If Don Young's supporters think they need a fighter in Congress, they're voting for us," Shurtleff said.

And if Parnell's supporters want to clean up Congress, Berkowitz is their obvious choice, he said.

A wild card in the race may still come from the U.S. Department of Justice. Young will be campaigning for re-election at a time when Sen. Ted Stevens is fighting federal charges that he failed to report $250,000 in gifts from an oil field services company owner who has already been convicted on federal bribery charges.

Federal prosecutors also are looking into some of Young's actions, possibly in obtaining earmarks for a Florida road project, but they haven't said anything publicly about whether Young may face charges.

Young, who already has spent $1 million on defense attorneys, declined to talk about what effect that might have on his campaign.

"I can't comment on that. Who knows," Young said. "If you know something, let me know."

• Contact reporter Pat Forgey at 523-2250 or e-mail patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com.