THE SENATOR RESTS
A State Senate Showdown with a Surprise Ending
For most of 2000, the United States was focused on the presidential election, which was headlined by Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush. But this wasn’t the only political race that year—and it almost certainly wasn’t the nastiest.
In Missouri, voters were tasked with electing a senator that year to represent them in Washington. The incumbent, Republican John Ashcroft, was likely the favorite going into the election. He had won the election six years prior in a landslide, taking 59.7 percent of the votes to his Democratic opponent’s 35.7 percent. Further, Ashcroft had a sizeable war chest to fund his campaign and could ride the coattails of Bush, who appeared primed to win the state. But Ashcroft’s opponent that year was a popular politician in his own right: incumbent Governor Mel Carnahan. Like Ashcroft, Carnahan won the office he then held with relative ease; he was originally elected in 1992 by seventeen points, and won re-election four years later by roughly the same margin.
Most experts believed Ashcroft would prevail, and, like in any tight race, they expected this one to be particularly nasty, as both major party candidates would try to cut out the other’s support. This prediction came true. Though what the experts didn’t account for was what happened on the evening of October 16, 2000—the night before one of the senate debates. That night, Carnahan and his campaign manager were aboard a small plane piloted by Carnahan’s son. It crashed, killing all three men aboard. When reporting the crash, The Washington Post also pointed out what appeared obvious: “The tragedy greatly reduces Democratic hopes to take control of the Senate.”
Ashcroft immediately paused his campaign. Not only would it be unseemly to ask for votes right after such a tragedy, he also didn’t have an opponent anymore—or so it seemed. Because the election was only three weeks away, Missouri law prevented new candidates from joining the race; Mel Carnahan, despite being deceased, would remain on the ballot. Missouri voters were left with a choice between Ashcroft, the deceased Carnahan, and a third-party candidate.
The late Democratic nominee also posed an odd problem. A deceased person can’t take the oath of office and clearly can’t be a senator—but what if he or she were to win anyway? If you treat the situation like any other senate vacancy, it falls to the state governor to appoint a new senator until a special election can be held. In that case, if Carnahan were to win, the seat would be vacant as of January 3, 2001. Missouri was about to elect a new governor, who would take office January 8, 2001, meaning the current governor would have an opportunity to appoint a senator. Upon Carnahan’s death, his lieutenant governor, Democrat Roger B. Wilson, became that person—and he had an idea.
A few days after Carnahan’s death, Wilson announced that he would nominate Carnahan’s widow, Jean Carnahan, if the late governor were to win. The election quickly approaching, Ashcroft resumed his campaign but was hamstrung by the events of the days prior. While Ashcroft’s attack ads may have been effective when Carnahan was alive, they’d almost certainly backfire now. Not only had the late Mel Carnahan’s reputation been rehabilitated by his death, but sullying his name to prevent his grieving widow from taking office would have been a bad political move. The final days of campaigning were tepid and uncharacteristically polite. Ultimately, Mel Carnahan won, taking 50.5 percent of the votes to Ashcroft’s 48.4 percent.