Mo. voters picking senator in one of nation's closest races

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- After traveling thousands of miles and spending millions of dollars, Republican Sen. Jim Talent and Democratic challenger State Auditor Claire McCaskill joined other Missourians on Tuesday in casting ballots in their closely-watched U.S. Senate race.

In one of the nation's closest U.S. Senate races, where polls never showed a clear leader, Missouri voters finally were picking a winner Tuesday while also deciding several high-profile ballot measures.

An amendment engraving the right to conduct embryonic stem cell research into the state constitution and a proposal to increase Missouri's minimum wage both were expected to have an impact on the Senate race. Voters also were deciding whether to quintuple cigarette taxes.

Talent and McCaskill both waited in long lines to vote as they started Election Day in suburban St. Louis -- Talent at an elementary school in Chesterfield; McCaskill less than 15 miles away at the Kirkwood community center. They then planned to drop by other polling places.

McCaskill stood in line for nearly a half-hour before she could vote, and she was glad to do it.

"I've never been so happy to wait in line," said McCaskill. "To have this kind of turnout for a non-presidential race is amazing."

She arrived to vote just before 7 a.m. with her husband, Joseph Shepard; her 78-year-old mother, Betty Anne McCaskill; and her 19-year-old son, Austin.

Talent, who waited in line for nearly an hour before voting, said he had no regrets as the campaign ended.

"I think we worked as hard as we could," he said.

Talent acknowledged he had been frustrated this campaign season having to run against voter discontent with President Bush and scandals involving other Republican officials. But he said he thinks his own record will matter most to Missouri voters.

"Win or lose, this has been my campaign," he said. "I'm not ready to say that people outside Missouri won or lost this for me."

After voting, McCaskill visited an adult day care center near downtown St. Louis, where about 20 elderly and disabled people gave her a warm welcome.

"We need a change in the government," said Betty Black, 60, a former nursing home employee from St. Louis. "We are tired of the negative stuff that's going on."

"That's like music to my ears," McCaskill said.

David Reddick, 59, a Democrat and marketing and communications consultant from Kirkwood, said he was holding Talent's record against him.

"(I'm voting for) Claire McCaskill because I think Jim Talent failed this community. He rubber-stamped the rush to war," Reddick said.

"I think the president's popularity has sagged and it is dragging Senator Talent down. I think people are tired of the war. I think they're tired of the economy. They're ready for a change and Senator Talent is not a change."

But Columbia high school teacher Austin Reed, 24, said Talent deserves more time to prove himself.

"People jump to change too quick," said Reed, an unaffiliated voter who voted for President Bush two years ago but went with Al Gore in 2000. "It's easy to point a finger and say something's wrong."

And Christian County employee Kelly Hall, 31, voted for Talent and against the stem cell amendment. She said Talent's opposition to the stem cell measure was "a big part" of why she voted for him.

"I'm independent but I do tend to vote Republican," Hall said.

McCaskill was taking one final fly-around, going from St. Louis to Columbia to Springfield to Kansas City, where she was to rally supporters into the evening, then returning to St. Louis for a late-night election watch party.

Talent planned to spend the full day in the St. Louis area, but his campaign declined to release an itinerary.

On Monday, he flew to rallies in Missouri's largest cities, telling supporters in Independence: "We are positioned very well to win this election. I love the intensity that's out there. But it's going to be close. It always is in Missouri."

McCaskill capped Monday's campaigning by knocking on doors in the Kansas City neighborhood where she first ran for the Missouri House 24 years ago -- a tradition she has followed in every past statewide campaign.

McCaskill entered her final weekend with a 24-hour push in the Democratic stronghold of St. Louis, stopping at diners, auto plants and grocery stores in the middle of the night.

Talent's final week of campaigning got a boost from President Bush, who drew a combined 11,000 people to rallies in the Republican bases of Springfield and Joplin. Talent made two or three final-week trips to parts of rural southern Missouri, which helped him eek out a 1 percentage point victory over Democrat Sen. Jean Carnahan in a special 2002 election.

McCaskill hoped to turn history around on Talent, who unseated Carnahan two years after narrowly losing the gubernatorial election. McCaskill narrowly lost the 2004 gubernatorial election before deciding to challenge Talent.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan predicted the stem cell initiative could help drive up voter turnout in Missouri. Spending on the stem cell amendment easily topped $30 million, while the Senate contest saw about $40 million spent by candidates, political parties other groups.

A McCaskill stem cell research ad featuring actor Michael J. Fox -- weaving noticeably from the effects of Parkinson's disease -- drew the skepticism of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, a Missouri native. It also prompted opponents of the ballot measure to hasten their own star-studded ad and cemented the mixing of Senate and stem cell initiative.

Talent opposes the stem cell ballot initiative because it would allow a cloning procedure that he says destroys human life at its earliest stages. He took no official position on the minimum wage initiative, though Talent noted he has supported mandatory wage increases only when tied to tax relief for businesses, which the Missouri ballot measure is not.

McCaskill, by contrast, touted the minimum wage ballot measure at almost every campaign stop she made while traveling the state in a big, blue recreational vehicle emblazoned with the slogan: "It's time for a senator on OUR side!"

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Associated Press writers Sam Hananel and Betsy Taylor in St. Louis contributed to this report.