Under the rules of Louisiana’s unique gubernatorial process, known as the “jungle primary,” there is no party primary. Instead, all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, are placed on a single ballot, and assuming no candidate clears 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters have a runoff.
That means Louisiana’s Oct. 24 Election Day probably won’t be the end of that story. Louisiana’s race has no incumbent because sitting governor and presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal is term-limited from the governor’s mansion. But the specter of Jindal’s deeply unpopular legacy looms large over the contest.
It’s something the 2016 presidential candidate doesn’t advertise on the campaign trail, but with local polls showing Jindal registering a dismal home-state approval rating, the competition to be seen by Louisiana voters as the least Jindal-esque is playing heavily in this fight. Jindal has been slammed for perceived fiscal mismanagement, with voters blaming him for inheriting a $1 billion budget surplus and leaving office with a projected $1.6 billion deficit. Front-runner U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican, is leading State Rep. John Bel Edwards, a Demorcrat, and two trailing contenders, according to local polling.
WHY IT MATTERS:
Vitter is running on the hope that Jindal’s unpopularity will overshadow his own flaws, which includes a 2007 prostitution scandal that his opponents have resurfaced in the campaign. A polarizing figure, Vitter has courted a fair amount of political and personal controversy during his 11 years in the U.S. Senate, and has seen his approval ratings suffer.
He drew attention in 2009 when he became one of two senators to vote against Hillary Clinton’s confirmation as secretary of state, and has continued needling Clinton over her private email server.
Vitter’s bill to defund so-called “sanctuary cities” that refuse to transfer illegal immigrants to federal custody will be brought to a vote Tuesday, and the senator recently waded into the simmering debate over the use of fetal tissue for scientific research by joining a chorus of senators to sign Sen. Rand Paul's letter urging the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate Planned Parenthood. He cast Senate votes that helped narrowly defeat the Manchin-Toomey proposal in 2013 to expand background checks on gun sales, and helped kill the bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill in 2007 supported by President George W. Bush, and Sens. John McCain and Ted Kennedy.
Immediately after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on marriage equality, Vitter irked liberals by tweeting a picture of himself holding a bag of Chick-fil-A, the fried chicken chain that made waves in 2012 when its president described same-sex marriage as a kind of sacrilege (he later called his statements a mistake). The Internet quickly descended on the senator, with critics pointing out that Vitter’s repeated rendezvous with hired sex workers should disqualify him from commenting on the sanctity of marriage.
Vitter confessed in 2007 to being a long-time client of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the infamous “D.C. Madam,” who made millions arranging trysts for an upscale clientele in the nation’s capital (Vitter’s shameful chapter has been reprised in an attack ad). Despite a blemished record of his own, Vitter is hoping that campaigning on his contrasts with the tarnished sitting governor, including his openness to Medicaid expansion that Jindal shunned, will carry him to victory.
