Why did John Ashcroft lose re-election to the Senate in 2000?

[kcguy]

Missouri was a lot more of a swing state back then.

Against Ashcroft, the Democrats nominated their most prominent politician, Mel Carnahan, who was just finishing his second term as governor.

Polls throughout the year consistently showed a close match, with Ashcroft up by roughly 3 percentage points.

Twenty-two days before the election, Carnahan (along with a son and others) died in a plane crash.  For nearly a week, local news eulogized the late governor, while Republicans were forced to pull ads attacking him.

Meanwhile, it was too late under Missouri law to remove Carnahan's name from the ballot, so Democrats encouraged voters to honor the late governor by casting their votes for him.

Carnahan's lieutenant governor promised to appoint Carnahan's grieving widow to fill the seat, should Carnahan's election create a vacancy.

The only Republican response was (a) to declare corruption, claiming that promising Jean Carnahan a Senate seat was buying her vote for her late husband; and (b) arguing that the death of a candidate should automatically make his opponent the winner, whether or not state law said otherwise.