Senator Jean Carnahan will run for the U.S. Senate seat she now holds. Carnahan has sent a letter to supporters, stating her intention to run and she plans to make a formal announcement later. Carnahan currently holds the seat won posthumously by her husband, Mel Carnahan, who died in a plane crash just three weeks before the 2000 election. Carnahan’s Republican opponent will be former St. Louis-area Congressman Jim Talent, who narrowly lost the Governor’s race to Bob Holden in November of last year.