Miami's trio of Cuban-American Republican congress members survived their toughest challenge yet on Tuesday night.

Voters returned hard-line anti-Castro Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart to Washington.

It was a major coup for the trio.

With Barack Obama heading the Democratic ticket and a newer, more moderate generation of non-Cuban Hispanic voters emerging throughout Miami-Dade, the Democrats had targeted the Diaz-Balart brothers for defeat.

Mario Diaz-Balart survived the closest race, narrowly outpolling Joe Garcia, the former chief of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, to win his fourth term.

With nearly all of the votes counted in Miami-Dade, and all of the precincts reporting in Collier County, Mario Diaz-Balart emerged with a 52 to 48 percent victory.

He showed up shortly before midnight at his west Miami-Dade headquarters with his wife, Tia.

''I feel so empowered by your support by the way you turned out despite millions of dollars against us,'' Mario Diaz-Balart said. ``It just strengthens my resolve to continue working for you. This victory is not mine. This victory is yours.''

Garcia had conceded earlier.

''Today, we didn't get exactly were we wanted to get, but we got very close,'' Garcia said to tearful supporters at the Sandbar Sports Grill in Kendall. ``We opened up a whole new debate . . . and we brought thousands of new voters into the mix.''

Lincoln Diaz-Balart scored a remarkably large double-digit win over former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez to win his ninth term on Capitol Hill.

''I'm going to go back to Washington to make sure that our community is respected, that our views are listened to, and to represent our community with maximum effectiveness,'' Diaz-Balart said.

Ros-Lehtinen cruised to her 11th term with 58 percent of the vote to vanquish her challenger, Colombian-American businesswoman Annette Taddeo.

Ros-Lehtinen said she fretted that an unpopular president, an unpopular war, a plummeting economy and an ''Obama wave'' might have added up to a perfect storm for the Democratic challengers.

''It had all the makings of me going down,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. ``If I can make it in this election, I can make it in any election.''

Martinez never officially conceded to Lincoln Diaz-Balart Tuesday night, but sounded like a beaten man when speaking to his supporters at a Howard Johnson's hotel.

''It doesn't look good, and I'm not a person who would say let's wait until the last minute [for results],'' Martinez said in Spanish. ``We did the maximum that could be done but one could not achieve what one wanted.''

With a handful of precincts yet to report in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, Lincoln Diaz-Balart was outpolling Martinez by 58-to-42 percent.

The race was one of the most expensive and nastiest congressional bouts in recent history.

Both campaigns sent a tsunami of negative ads across the local airwaves.

The defeat was historic: Martinez had never lost an election in 27 years of political life. But it was also his first elective foray outside of the boundaries of Hialeah.

Lincoln Diaz-Balart thrashed Martinez with 60 percent of the vote in Miami-Dade.

Miami Herald staff writers Adam Beasley, Alfonso Chardy, Elaine De Valle, Jennifer Lebovich, Patricia Mazzei, Michael R. Vasquez and Luisa Yanez contributed to this report.

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