Louisiana Just Elected John Bel Edwards Governor in Surprise Victory for Democrats

Vitter’s announcement came moments after he began his concession speech as he began to speak about his future.

“I thought he was going to be a career Army officer”, said his sophomore-year roommate at West Point, Murray Starkel, now an engineer in Dallas.

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. “Sam”, said one of the men, Rep. John Bel Edwards, “I’m not staying in the House. And ironically, it’s the campaign and the political effort I am most proud of”, Vitter said.

Edwards will be the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, where Republicans dominate politically.

“Democrats couldn’t have a better candidate”, Edwin Edwards said at the Democrats’ lively election night party here at the Hotel Monteleone. Mr Vitter, who apologised for his “very serious sin” at the time, won re-election to the Senate in 2010, but the scandal returned to haunt his gubernatorial run. It will certainly make the next four years more interesting because the Louisiana legislature is heavily Republican.

Sheriff’s Office detectives have executed warrants to view the seven-minute video Robert Frenzel recorded on Friday morning at a Metairie coffee shop and to search his phones and cars as they piece together evidence to get a warrant for violation of the state’s laws against intercepting communications, Normand said. “Rolling back that progress is not what voters want to see and what students need”.

The victory was as much about Vitter’s flaws as a candidate as it was about Edwards’ strengths. They were Congressmen, Public Service Commissioners, Lt. Governors, state senators, appellate judges and even the warden of the prison at Angola, but none of them, not in almost a century, had so low a profile as a simple state representative.

Mr. Edwards said in debates, speeches and ads that he would be faithful to his state and to his wife.

Vitter’s campaign tried to change the subject by seizing on controversy over whether Syrian refuges should be allowed into the United States, in the wake of the Paris massacre.

During the campaign, a pro-reform education group produced TV ads and mailers pointing out that public-school teachers’ unions that oppose choice have long thrown their support behind Edwards. Jazz has suggested this was a repudiation of the unpopular Bobby Jindal, but National Journal pointed out in February the two politicians don’t like each other at all (emphasis mine). When I chose to make this race with Wendy, that I wanted to pursue new challenges outside the Senate no matter what, I’d reached my personal term limit. We hope he governs progressively and brings broad prosperity to the Bayou State’s many diverse communities.

Vitter beat out two other Republicans for the right to face Edwards in a runoff, but is losing badly tonight.

John Bel Edwards (no relation to the other John Edwards) defeated U.S. Sen. So has state Treasurer John Kennedy.

As I noted in my post yesterday, the pre-election polling seemed to strongly indicate that Edwards was headed for a sizable victory last night notwithstanding the fact that Republican has, if anything, become a far more Republican state since the last time it elected a Democratic Governor in 2003 or the last time it elected any Democrat in a statewide race when Mary Landrieu won re-election, a seat she of course lost just previous year.