LAKE OZARK, Mo. -- State Auditor Claire McCaskill is running against a relative unknown with a criminal record. But she isn't taking the race for granted, expressing fear of "almost a sympathy factor" that could help challenger Al Hanson.

Hanson is a convicted felon whose lopsided upset of the state GOP's favored but unknown candidate in the August primary stunned the party and political observers.

The Missouri GOP's top leaders, while stopping short of encouraging votes for McCaskill, has refused to endorse Hanson, who has done little active campaigning.

In an appearance Friday before the annual convention of the Missouri Press Association, McCaskill, a Democrat, noted that Hanson comes across as a nonpolitician and has founded a prison ministry.

She said that could appeal to some voters seeking an unconventional candidate.

"There's almost a Jesse Ventura kind of thing," McCaskill said, referring to the former professional wrestler who won the Minnesota governor's office as an independent political outsider.

The latest poll in the race, conducted earlier this month by pollster John Zogby for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV in St. Louis, showed McCaskill with about a 30-point lead over Hanson. But more than a quarter of voters polled were undecided.

So far, McCaskill has done some campaigning but spent little money for her re-election. She told the state's newspaper editors and publishers no decisions have been made about how much advertising she will buy for the campaign.

The newspaper convention had invited all auditor candidates appearing on the Nov. 5 ballot to share a stage. But only McCaskill showed up.

Hanson declined the invitation, saying he would be out of state. Libertarian Arnold Trembley and Green Party nominee Fred Kennell also didn't attend.

McCaskill's name has surfaced as a possible candidate to replace Attorney General Jay Nixon by appointment if Nixon is named president of the University of Missouri. The presidency will be vacated by the planned 2003 retirement of Manuel Pacheco. Nixon is said to be seeking the job, but he hasn't publicly confirmed that.