Online poll shows heat in Senate race

There are lots of reasons why this year's contest for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Jean Carnahan is so important. Jim Talent, former U.S. representative/candidate for governor, is challenging Carnahan, who was appointed after her husband was elected posthumously in November 2000.

One way to tell how serious this race is being taken by Democrat supporters of Carnahan and Republican backers of Talent is to look at the weekly online poll conducted by semissourian.com, this newspaper's Web site.

Prior to last week, the biggest response to the online poll had been from loyal fans of one high school team or another.

But last week, party faithful from around the state were called to action by e-mails from party leaders as the poll asked who would get respondents' votes in the Senate race.

Nearly 2,700 responses later, Talent had a four-point edge on Carnahan.

Does this mean Talent will win? Only if he has a four-point edge in November when the real voters go to the polls. But response to the poll is a taste of the campaign to come. This will be a tough battle and the race to watch.