Robin Carnahan

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan , one of the Democratic Party’s top candidates for a Republican-held Senate seat in the 2010 election cycle, raised more than $1 million in this year’s first quarter.

Carnahan, the daughter of the late Gov. Mel Carnahan and former Sen. Jean Carnahan, reported $1.05 million in total receipts since organizing her campaign in early February. About four-fifths of her first-quarter take came from individual donors.  

Though the primary election is 16 months away, Democratic officials in Missouri and Washington, D.C., are treating Carnahan as if she is already their party’s nominee for the seat of retiring four-term Republican Christopher S. Bond .