Barely a week after he was convicted on seven felony counts, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska held on to a narrow lead in his bid for re-election.

Early Wednesday, Mr. Stevens, a Republican, led his Democratic challenger, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, 48 percent to 46 percent, a margin of about 3,600 votes, with 96 percent of ballots counted.

Mr. Stevens’s longtime colleague and sole Alaskan member of the House, Representative Don Young, led the race for his seat. Mr. Young, a Republican first elected in 1973, has also been under federal investigation. With 96 percent of ballots counted, he led Ethan Berkowitz, a Democrat and former state lawmaker, by about 52 to 44 percent.

Mr. Stevens, a 40-year incumbent and the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, was convicted Oct. 27 on seven felony counts of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations. Two days later, Mr. Stevens returned to Alaska for a six-day campaign sprint in which he insisted to voters that he had been wrongfully prosecuted and would have his conviction overturned.

Polls showed him behind and some experts predicted his defeat.

“I don’t believe there is another senator in America who could survive politically what he’s been through,” John Binkley, a prominent Republican in the state, said late Tuesday at the Egan Center in downtown Anchorage, where candidates traditionally gather on election night. “It is a testament to how much he has done for Alaska.”

Many national Republicans called on Mr. Stevens to resign, including Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. Some Senate leaders threatened to expel Mr. Stevens if he stays in office and loses his appeal of his conviction. Yet the state Republican Party encouraged voters to keep Mr. Stevens in office, and the senator’s campaign paid for a blitz of final advertisements, including a two-minute commercial on Monday night.

Mr. Stevens said more than once in the last week that he had not been convicted, a reference to the fact that a conviction is not formal until sentencing, which has not yet taken place. He told voters at one small rally that his situation was similar to that of the lacrosse players at Duke University who were wrongly convicted of sexual assault in 2006.

“Those fellows went through an ordeal like mine until they discovered that it was actually a scheme of the prosecution,” he said. “The abuse of power was overwhelming.”

A spokesman for the senator, Aaron Saunders, said Mr. Stevens would not declare victory on Tuesday. “He feels good about where we are but there are a lot of votes still out.”

Mr. Stevens suggested in the past week that if he were to lose his appeal, he would resign rather than face a possible expulsion from the Senate.

“He said he would do what’s right for Alaska,” Mr. Saunders said Tuesday night. At the same time, Mr. Saunders questioned whether senators could muster the two-thirds vote necessary for expulsion.

Mr. Begich, the son of a former Alaska congressman, Nick Begich, a Democrat who was killed in a plane crash in 1972, ran a careful campaign in which he rarely criticized Mr. Stevens. Instead, he let consistently bad news about the accusations surrounding Mr. Stevens do its own damage. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also spent heavily on an advertisement accusing Mr. Stevens of corruption.

Like Mr. Stevens, Mr. Young is known for bringing home millions of dollars in federal money. Mr. Young stopped short of declaring victory late Tuesday, but he was clearly optimistic based on the results tallied shortly before midnight Tuesday.

“I don’t listen to the polls, never have,” Mr. Young said while supporters chanted around him at the Egan Center. “The people believe in me.”

The victories will keep intact Alaska’s three-member, all-Republican delegation. Senator Lisa Murkowski is the state’s junior senator. WILLIAM YARDLEY

Senator Stevens Hanging by a Thread in Alaska