Democrat Keith Ellison was elected Minnesota Attorney General despite a rough campaign due to domestic abuse allegations.

The Associated Press called the race at 11:20 p.m. for Ellison. With 81 percent of the vote in, Ellison held a five-point lead over Republican challenger Doug Wardlow. The win secures an office for the DFL that threatened to swing to Republicans for the first time in nearly half a century.

Ellison rose to national prominence as the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006, and became deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee last year.

Current Attorney General Lori Swanson waited until June before announcing that she would run for governor instead of seeking a fourth term. Ellison quickly decided to give up his safe Minneapolis-area congressional seat to seek her job instead. Then his ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic abuse.

The virtually unknown Wardlow — who was a lawyer for a conservative Christian legal advocacy group — became a realistic contender. A Star Tribune/Minnesota Public Radio poll last month gave Wardlow a slight lead. The last GOP attorney general, Doug Head, served one term before losing the 1970 gubernatorial race to Democrat Wendell Anderson.

Not only did Ellison become a lightning rod in the attorney general’s race, Republicans in other races attacked their Democratic opponents for failing to denounce him. While an investigation commissioned by Democratic leaders declared the allegations unsubstantiated, Wardlow called it a whitewash.

During Wardlow’s single term in the Minnesota House, he backed so-called right-to-work legislation to block unions from collecting mandatory dues. He also tried unsuccessfully to stop the state from setting up the MNsure health insurance exchange.