Nelson defeats McCollum in Florida , Democrats pick up Senate seat

Bill Nelson

(CNN) -- Democrat State Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson defeated Republican U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum in Florida tonight. The Democrats pick up the open Senate seat vacated by Connie R. Mack.

This was the only open Republican Senate seat in the nation. Republican Sen. Connie Mack is retiring.

The race between the two front-runners was expected to be the closest Senate race in Florida since Mack's victory in 1988.

In a pack of seven candidates, Nelson and McCollum fought to get their names out to voters as they debated almost every policy issue under the sun.

Nelson, a former member of Congress who went into space as part of a NASA crew, campaigned as a moderate and tried to paint McCollum as too conservative for Florida.

McCollum had received national attention for his role as a House impeachment manager during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. He avoided mentioning it in his campaign, but did use the issue in fundraising letters where he wrote that Bill Clinton wanted revenge on him.

McCollum ran on his proposals for a smaller government, a theme that seemed to resonate with supporters of Republican presidential nominee Gov. George W. Bush.

The other five candidates in this race included Joel Deckard of the Reform Party, Joe Simonetta of the Natural Law Party - and three candidates with no party affiliation: Willie Logan, Darrell McCormick and Andy Martin.