In what was arguably the state’s most interesting primary elections since 1987, state Rep. John Bel Edwards and U.S. Sen.
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Polls close on Saturday at 8 p.m. The victor will follow term-limited Republican Bobby Jindal into the governor’s mansion, taking over a state awash in financial problems.
The Senator told his supporters he is eager to return to focusing on “important work” in the U.S. Senate, but he said he would return only “for one more year”, the remainder of his current term.
It wasn’t thought a Democrat had a decent shot at winning a statewide race in 2015, let alone the governor’s race.
“I’ve spoken about this directly with the people of Louisiana for a few time”, Vitter said at a debate here Monday night when asked about the scandal, which saw his phone number linked to a D.C. prostitute who catered to the rich and powerful.
Vitter, a staunch conservative who served in the House for two terms before being elected to the Senate in 2004, aired a pair of ads in response that alluded to his quest for moral redemption after the scandal.
Vitter, for his part, was a problematic candidate for Republicans, even though he had been widely seen as the favorite for months. Edwards focused on his West Point degree and military resume and he pledged a bipartisan leadership style.
Vitter said Edwards was misrepresenting a record filled with votes supporting teacher unions and trial lawyers and opposing business interests and education reform efforts. When the final campaign finance reports are filed, the contest is expected to be the most expensive governors race in Louisiana history.
The well-known Vitter was the prohibitive favorite during the early stages of the race, but after sustained attacks targeting his involvement in a 2007 prostitution scandal, he barely defeated two of his Republican challengers and finished in second behind the lesser-known Edwards by 14 points in the jungle primary. He reiterated that Louisiana didn’t belong to a political party, but to all Louisianans.
On the other side were three strong Republicans in a bare-knuckle family feud for the other spot – Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne and Vitter.
“A larger question looms”, writes Jason Berry in the Daily Beast: “If the margin holds, does the Edwards surge signal a sputtering of the Republican Southern strategy that exploits racial division by demonizing President Obama?”
But Vitter’s fate is not sealed, despite trailing Edwards by double digits in most polls since they both advanced to the runoff in October. But voters will also decide who will be lieutenant governor and attorney general.
And when Vitter entered the race in January 2014 as the frontrunner, he was pulling in tremendous sums of campaign cash and firing up a dominant political machine that he’s used to get himself and his allies regularly elected to Louisiana offices.
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Vitter’s frosty relationships with other Republican elected officials also caught up with him.
