Governor Mel Carnahan, over the Republican candidate, Missouri Attorney General William L. Webster, and Libertarian Joan Dow.

[4] Declined Lieutenant Governor Mel Carnahan was the only Democrat to win a statewide election in 1988.

[12] These charges became relevant when Schoemehl referred to him as "some redneck from Rolla", attacks which Carnahan claimed reflected how his opponent truly viewed rural Missourians.

[21] Hillard Selck, the former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, organized a Draft Webster movement in February 1989.

[25] Webster's campaign was managed by Tony Feather, who resigned as executive director of the Missouri Republican Party to accept the job, and employed Rich Galen as a press secretary.

William Pagano, the former police chief of Festus, Missouri that was convicted of murder, donated $34,000 to him between 1984 and 1989.

[30] Bailey's campaign was managed by Ken Allen and Chris Molendorp worked as finance director.

The investigation, originally started in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, showed among other things, lawyers who contributed to Webster's campaign received larger settlements.

Webster would attack an opponent, possibly Blunt, for leaking the story to the press that he was being investigated by a grand jury.

[38][17] However, Webster responded with an attack on Blunt for supposedly printing the official state manual of Missouri in Indiana.

Blunt was anti-abortion, as was Webster, who argued a case before the Supreme Court upholding Missouri's abortion restrictions.

Despite the fact that Webster had wide recognition serving as the Attorney General of Missouri, he was handily defeated in a 17% margin of victory for Carnahan.

Carnahan won the typically Democratic strongholds such as St. Louis and Kansas City, but also performed surprisingly well in most of rural Missouri.

[44] Carnahan's victory was likely aided in Bill Clinton's concurrent win in Missouri in the 1992 presidential election.