There was also dissension in Republican ranks.
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Perhaps if Dardenne would have been in a GOP primary, he would have been forced to run as a conservative and then perhaps he might have been a better candidate.
But Edwards also benefited from what evolved into the ideal political playing field for an upset. He leveraged his rural roots to a powerful 40 % main end against three Republicans, a feat much more putting given low turnout in highly Democratic urban centers.
But Edwards proved them wrong.
With Jindal’s approval rating down to 20 percent in a recent statewide poll, Edwards has repeatedly said that a victory by Vitter would mean a continuation of Jindal’s unpopular policies.
Edwards named outgoing state Sen.
While Vitter’s loss wasn’t necessarily a surprise, his announcement that he would not seek re-election did some as something of a surprise, at least in its timing.
Vitter endured a three-way battle among Republicans in Louisiana’s late October all-party primary to make it into Saturday’s runoff election.
As he campaigned, Edwards said he wanted to unlock budget protections that keep some areas of the budget shielded from cuts, expand the state’s Medicaid program to help cover some health care costs and scale back tax break programs. He set the terms of the dialog, simply deflecting charges in that he’s too copious to govern reliably Republican Louisiana & shifting the main target to character, character & the social issues on which he holds more conservative positions. Not only do we exsanguinate from the open wound of a system which pits candidates of the same party against each other on the same election day and in front of the same voters as candidates of opposite parties, we allow that system to give us a general election only four weeks after the jungle primary.
Democrats will seek to convince themselves that Edwards’ victory is somehow the “turn of the tide” and represents a comeback for the party that will carry over into 2016.
John Bel Edwards consistently led Vitter in the polls leading up to Saturday, but Democrats were concerned that Vitter might still pull off a victory.
“We definitely don’t want Baton Rouge to become Washington where Republicans try to kill anything the Democrats propose and the Democrats try to kill anything the Republicans propose”. And that’s a reality that Democrats ignore at their own peril.
Democrat John Bel Edwards has won the runoff election for Louisiana governor, defeating the once-heavy favorite, Republican David Vitter, and handing the Democrats their first statewide victory since 2008.
Among them: calling a special legislative session in February sometime after Mardi Gras to address a $500 million mid-year shortfall before the regular session in March where the state will be $1 billion short in fiscal year 2016-17.
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During the campaign, Mr. Edwards emphasized his record as a pro-gun-rights, antiabortion legislator who graduated from West Point and came from a long line of small-town sheriffs. And his name isn’t Vitter, which was one of the deciding factors.
