Edward’s win comes as somewhat of a surprise for the Democrat who was the dark horse in the governor’s race when he began his campaign.
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Edwards is a classic Blue Dog Democrat-he’s anti-choice, pro-gun and opposes same-sex marriage. After earning a law degree at Louisiana State University and working as an attorney, Edwards won election to the state House in 2008.
Hundreds of supporters celebrated with the governor-elect, his wife Donna and their children at the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans, cheering and endlessly ringing yellow and blue bells, the colors of the campaign. Opinion polls show Obama and his party sharply at odds with the electorate on the issue.
If the hard work is just beginning, John Bel Edwards and his supporters got to enjoy the thrill of victory this weekend. Still, there are lessons here for both the Democrats and for the Republicans going into 2016. But Edwards also makes a virtue of necessity by calling for Republicans and Democrats in the State Capitol to come together in common objective. Two other Republicans on the statewide ballot beat their Democratic challengers handily, each drawing 100,000 more Republican votes than Vitter did, according to the secretary of state’s website.
In his concession speech, Vitter said he would not be seeking re-election for his Senate seat in the coming year.
The focus on refugees was an attempt by Vitter to connect with voter concerns about immigration and terrorism while giving Republicans offended by his personal behavior a reason to vote for him, Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said before the vote.
In one ad, an announcer intones, “Vitter chose prostitutes over patriots”, implying that he answered a sex worker’s call during a veteran’s program, NPR reported.
Inauguration for the new governor will be held on January 20, 2016. That might benefit the state GOP as a whole; the inability of the two to get along has been a distraction that ultimately played a role in the state’s two most prominent Republicans combining to lose the governor’s mansion to a lowly, unaccomplished state representative from a town with a population of 4,000. Bill Cassidy, Reps. Steve Scalise, Charles Boustany, John Fleming and Ralph Abraham – identify with Vitter’s camp. And his name isn’t Vitter, which was one of the deciding factors.
The outcome of the election, however, may have turned more on Vitter’s weaknesses than Edwards’ appeal.
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The two-term senator lost to state Democratic Rep. John Bel Edwards in the runoff election. So, painting Vitter as a successor to Jindal was a good move for the Edwards campaign-failing to distance himself from Jindal was something that Vitter did poorly. In the end, though, this being Louisiana it seems clear that whoever emerges from the state’s jungle primary as the Republican nominee next year will be the odds-on favorite to win the election, and may well win the election outright in that primary.
