and would instead defend his Senate seat in the 2000 election. Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan announced he would contest the Senate election as a Democrat. In the general election for the state's seat in the U.S. Senate, Ashcroft was facing then-Governor Mel Carnahan in a "tight" race, despite the senator having a larger budget than Carnahan, a war chest that included significant contributions from corporations such as Monsanto Company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, which gave five times more to Ashcroft's campaign fund than to the fund of any other congressional hopeful at the time. Carnahan was killed in a plane crash three weeks before the November election date. Nonetheless, Carnahan's name remained on the ballot due to Missouri's election laws. Lieutenant Governor Roger B. Wilson became Governor upon Carnahan's death, to serve the remaining term of Carnahan's governorship. Ashcroft suspended all campaigning on the day of the plane crash in light of the tragedy and resumed it eight days before the election date. The voters of Missouri, by a margin of approximately fifty thousand votes, chose for the U.S. Senate Mel Carnahan, their Governor who had died two weeks before the election. No one had ever posthumously won election to the Senate, though voters on at least three other occasions had until then chosen deceased candidates for the House of Representatives: Clement Woodnutt Miller (D) in California in 1962; Nick Begich (D) in Alaska, 1972; and Hale Boggs (D) in Louisiana, 1972. Hence, John Ashcroft became the first U.S. Senate candidate to be defeated by a dead opponent. Governor Roger B. Wilson appointed Carnahan's 66-year-old widow, Jean Carnahan, to fill her husband's vacant seat until the next cycle of Senate elections when a successor could be elected to serve out the remaining four years of the deceased Carnahan's would-be term. Ashcroft stated that he hoped the appointment would be "a matter of comfort for Mrs. Carnahan." Montana Incumbent Republican Conrad Burns won re-election to a third term. Though Sam Rankin won the Reform Party's nomination for the United States Senate, he dropped out of the race over the summer and was replaced by Gary Lee. Conrad, in a poll released September 21, was leading Schweitzer 48% to 39% that went down from 49% in November 1999. Schweitzer had his polls go up by 11 points. Burns faced a surprisingly difficult re-election campaign in 2000. In February 1999, he announced