Democrat Edwards Wins Louisiana Governor Election

Bayou State voters shocked the Louisiana Republican Party and pundits across the country Saturday night, overwhelmingly choosing Democratic State Representative John Bel Edwards as the next governor of Louisiana over the once-heavy favorite, U.S. Republican Senator David Vitter, a victor of many past statewide elections.

Louisiana’s senior senator was damaged by his 2007 prostitution scandal, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plummeting popularity and a hostile relationship with his Republican competitors.

John Bel Edwards’ victory in Saturday’s runoff election was once-unthinkable in the conservative state and a stunning turn of events for Vitter, who started his campaign almost two years ago as the race’s front-runner.

In conceding the election, Vitter said he will not seek re-election to the Senate after he finishes the previous year of this term. Edwards focused on his West Point degree and military resume, and pledged a bipartisan leadership style.

To accomplish such sweeping adjustments, he’ll need to rally support from Republican state lawmakers who have majorities in both the House and Senate. But it apparently didn’t work. Charles Boustany and John Fleming. If Edwards wins, blue-dog conservative Democrats will make a comeback in Southern politics.

Instead, Edwards wins – thanks to a public who has been sold a bill of goods that he’s “not so bad”. Vitter’s concession speech was surprisingly gracious, and Edwards was correspondingly magnanimous in victory. Edwards won by 12 percentage points after being ahead by 4 points in the final statewide poll released Friday. Voters made it more about the state’s broken finances – and Vitter. He capitalized on voters’ apparent unease with Vitter and built a campaign on personal integrity. Vitter attacked the other Republicans as free-spending liberals while they labeled Vitter “vicious” and “a liar”, bringing up the prostitution scandal in debates.

“I will always be honest with you”. “I will never embarrass you”.

With nearly 90 percent of precincts reporting, Bel Edwards was leading Vitter 54-46, and was declared the victor.

“I would hope we would all be able to put donkeys and elephants aside to get the state back on the right track as regards to fiscal matters”, said Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, who supported Vitter for governor and is vying to be the next House speaker.

That is insane, it’s stupid, it encourages our elections to be decided by money from out-of-state interests, it greatly favors incumbents while discouraging insurgent and citizen candidates and in case after case it encourages voters to make dumb decisions. Soon after, a private investigator working for the Vitter campaign was arrested after surreptitiously filming a group of men at a cafe outside New Orleans – a gathering that included another private investigator, one who had tracked down the escort in the online video.

The bitter mudslinging campaign for Louisiana governor will come to a head Saturday, closing out a contest that’s dredged up one candidate’s past with prostitutes and most recently turned on whether to admit Syrian refugees into the state.