All of the attention for now will be on the state’s dire fiscal situation, with a structural budget deficit, little left to cut and minimal appetite among businesses for chipping in more revenue.
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Mr Jindal also struggled to muster even 1 per cent support in national polls during his run for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, which he terminated last week. David Vitter in a hotly contested runoff election that defied the political headwinds in a state where Republicans now hold all statewide offices. “The state’s in real trouble”. Jindal rejected the funds during his second term.
Louisiana Democrats rejoiced in Edward’s upset victory – reclaimed the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years.
Dardenne crossed party lines to endorse Edwards, while Angelle was conspicuously absent from the public eye after the primary to avoid pressure to endorse his fellow Republican Vitter.
Edwards painted the race as a referendum on Vitter’s character and suggested the US senator didn’t measure up in such a competition.
In his victory speech, Edwards said Louisiana voters “have chosen hope over scorn, over negativity” in electing him as the state’s next governor. But in a heavily Republican year, he skated to victory.
It wasn’t just his positions or his credentials as a West Point graduate that seemed to attract voters, it also helped that Edwards “was running against one of the most seriously flawed candidates it’s possible to imagine”, as the Washington Post’s Philip Bump puts it. In the end, Louisiana is a red state and last night’s results would likely have been different had Republicans united behind a candidate other than Vitter. But even so, Vitter’s supports are still standing by his side.
“I’m not supporting a Democrat; I’m supporting the man who I think can best bring about the consensus needed to move Louisiana forward”, Shadoin said.
As long as the race was decided by domestic issues, Edwards, a former Army ranger who opposes abortion rights, had the advantage, Cross said.
Edwards thanked voters in a statement late Saturday.
“I’ve lost one political campaign in my life, tonight, and ironically it’s the campaign and the political effort I am most proud of – fighting shoulder to shoulder with you”, Vitter said to supporters. In addition, many analysts felt that the Paris terrorist attacks and the ensuing controversy over settling Syrian refugees in Louisiana, might play in Vitter’s favor.
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“The current administration has failed Louisiana”, Peterson said in an interview. What would happen if he didn’t win, though, was largely a matter of speculation until Vitter came out and said it. Indeed, initially several of the reporters in the room reported on Twitter stated that Vitter had announced that the Senate was immediately leaving the Senate, due apparently to the fact that he wasn’t clear at first. Vitter could seek re-election to the Senate in 2016, though Republican colleagues are hardly enthusiastic about that scenario, concerned his unpopularity could throw the seat to a Democratic opponent.
