Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race has been overshadowed by the presidential election, but there has been one constant throughout the campaign. Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy has been the leader in the polls, primarily because of his name recognition.
Kennedy was first elected state treasurer in 1999. He was re-elected to his fifth term in 2015. He has been involved in three unsuccessful statewide contests. He ran for state attorney general in 1991, and twice for the Senate. He came in third in 2004 as a Democrat and was defeated as a Republican by former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, R-Baton Rouge, in 2008.
Four other candidates are considered to be serious contenders for the Senate seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie. If no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote next Tuesday and Kennedy’s lead holds, one of them is expected to face Kennedy in a Dec. 10 runoff.
The other four are U.S. Reps. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, and John Fleming, R-Minden, and Democrats Foster Campbell, a member of the state Public Service Commission and former state senator, and Caroline Fayard, a New Orleans attorney.
Boustany or Campbell has been in second place in most of the polls, but Fleming and Fayard are still in contention.
Political analysts believe a Democrat in the runoff would have a difficult time defeating one of the Republicans. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards bucked that trend last year when he defeated Vitter in a runoff by a wide margin, but Vitter wasn’t a popular candidate. Edwards is backing Campbell.
A Southern Media & Opinion Research poll had it Kennedy, 22 percent; Campbell, 16 percent; Boustany, 14 percent; Fayard, 12 percent; and Fleming, 9 percent.
Market Research Insight had it Kennedy, 17 percent; Boustany, 16 percent; Campbell, 14 percent; Fayard, 12 percent; and Fleming, 7 percent.
The Mason-Dixon poll had it Kennedy, 24 percent; Campbell, 19 percent; and Fayard, Boustany and Fleming at around 11 percent each.
A New Orleans Survey Research Center poll had Kennedy, 22 percent; Campbell and Boustany, 15 percent each; Fleming, 11 percent; and Fayard, 10 percent.
Boustany is considered by many political observers to be Kennedy’s toughest competition, and that is why the treasurer is spending most of his time trying to discredit Boustany.
Kennedy’s attacks don’t seem to be having much success, and that may be because of Boustany’s strengths. Stephanie Grace, a columnist for The Advocate, said Boustany has some momentum, “having picked up the main newspaper endorsements, run some of the best ads in the race and made an explicit pitch to voters who are focused on policy and productivity.”
Voters of the former 7th and current 3rd Congressional Districts have elected Boustany to six terms in the House, and he has delivered concrete results.
Fleming has strong support from ultra-conservative groups, but he is competing with Republican Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel. However, Maness didn’t qualify for an earlier debate or one televised Wednesday, and that is problematic for Maness.
It will be interesting to see what effect a bitter campaign between Campbell and Fayard, the Democratic contenders, will have on the final outcome. Fayard lost some support when she attempted to link Campbell to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, one of the six Senate candidates who qualified for the Wednesday debate.
“Caroline Fayard is down in the polls and she’ll do anything to try to hold on,” Campbell told The Advocate. “It’s a shame that she would stoop to this when she knows damn well that it’s not the truth.”
The newspaper said Boustany also took aim at Campbell over his support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, but added that Campbell won’t mention Clinton by name.
Campbell’s campaign fired back, saying, “Mr. Boustany and every other candidate in this race are well aware that Commissioner Campbell has stated he is supporting the Democratic nominee, but desperate times lead failing campaigns to desperate measures,” a spokeswoman for Campbell said.
It should come as no surprise that the presidential race is injected into the Senate campaign since Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has a wide lead over Clinton in Louisiana.
The Mason-Dixon poll gave Trump a 54 percent lead to 34 percent for Clinton. However, in the New Orleans metro area they were tied at 42 percent. The survey showed 88 percent of Louisiana Republican voters favor Trump, but so do 32 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of independent voters.
How accurate are all of the polls mentioned here? The Advocate quoted the Pew Research Center that said long lists of candidates can create polling difficulties, and there are 24 names on the ballot in the U.S. Senate race.
“You’re going to get some room for random error in there,” Mike Henderson told the newspaper. He is director of the LSU Public Policy Research Lab.
Henderson said Louisiana’s open primary where all candidates compete regardless of their political party affiliation is also a problem.
“In a sense, it’s harder to poll in Louisiana because we don’t have the same kind of setup,” he said.
In six days, we will find out how accurate the polls have been. But whatever the case, voters may have found them helpful in deciding how to vote in a U.S. Senate race that has played second fiddle to the Clinton-Trump brawl.
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