Vitter told dejected supporters he would leave politics next year, choosing not to run for another term in the U.S. Senate.
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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.
Edwards, a rare Democrat who is pro-life and pro-gun rights, focused on his West Point degree and military résumé and ran as a moderate who pledged a bipartisan leadership style.
“I never thought that he was going to be this juggernaut”, a confident Edwards said of Vitter one night during the primary season.
But the governor’s race was different.
Republican Billy Nungesser will take over as Louisiana’s lieutenant governor in January, after defeating Democrat Kip Holden in the runoff election.
Republicans, who resort to negative campaigning all the time, were hardly in a position to complain, but they did so anyway… loudly.
He said he called Edwards to congratulate him.
Boustany has raised almost $2 million for his 2016 House re-election campaign, and Fleming has taken in $1.5 million (including $525,000 in a personal loan to his campaign). Some 290,000 people in the state have no health coverage, because Jindal refused Medicaid funds under [the Patient Protection Act] on ideological grounds. Given Edwards stellar performance this evening, Landrieu may consider the Senate more seriously, now that a Democratic statewide victory appears more plausible.
Edwards, a 49-year-old state legislator, defeated Republican U.S. Sen. The new residents of Plano, The Woodlands, Katy and Round Rock, Texas, Peachtree City, Georgia, Glendale, Arizona and Olive Branch, Mississippi, as well as other locales in the soon-to-be-growing Louisiana diaspora, will be snickering in relief over the next four years. Noting the nastiness of the campaign in his victory speech, Mr Edwards said voters in Louisiana had “chosen hope over scorn, over negativity and over the distrust of others”.
In so many respects, John Bel Edwards was the ideal candidate at the flawless time for Louisiana Democrats.
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.
Edwards, the House minority leader, in recent years became one of the fiercest legislative critics of Jindal’s budgetary policy, lodging objections from his post in the rear of the chamber. David Vitter. He thanked those supporters who he said “believed we could confound the conventional wisdom that this victory just couldn’t happen”. The main lesson is that a socially conservative Democrat can still win in Dixie against a flawed Republican who can’t unite his party.
“Vitter is dropping in the polls and feeling his lead slipping away, so his paranoia and desperation are kicking in”, said Republican pollster Rolf McCollister, The Daily Beast reported.
Edwards brings a varied background to the governor’s office. Maybe-Edwards’ campaign certainly was a success.
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“We certainly have our plate full, and it’s complicated by the state of Louisiana not doing very well”, he said.
