If you’re already growing weary of seeing all those television ads about Louisiana’s hotly contested U.S. Senate race, then you’ll take little comfort in learning that there’s now more money flowing into the candidates’ campaign accounts than in any other comparable statewide election in recent history. So far the two lead contenders have deposited more than $21.5 million into their accounts, with more certainly to come. Incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu, a New Orleans Democrat, has raised $13.5 million this cycle. That’s nearly $2 million more than she collected during her entire 2008 re-election campaign—and there’s still three and a half months to go until the November primary. Her lead challenger, Congressman Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, has raised $8 million thus far. That well exceeds the $2.8 million that was raised by Landrieu’s last major challenger, Treasurer John Kennedy, six years ago. When coupled with all of the outsider spending by third-party groups, John Couvillon, president of JMC Analytics, says, this fall’s U.S. Senate race is already the most expensive election Louisiana has ever seen. “With all of the recent court rulings on unlimited fundraising by super PACs and the possibility that this race could decide the partisan makeup of the Senate, the spigots have been turned wide open,” he says. “The expenditure figures indicate to me that for once a Louisiana statewide race is very prominent on the national level.” The last major Senate race Louisiana saw was in 2010, when incumbent GOP Sen. David Vitter raised $12.5 million to defend his seat. In that runoff, he bested former Congressman Charlie Melancon, a Democrat who raised $4 million for his challenge. Adding to the Landrieu-Cassidy tally this cycle is retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness of Mandeville. A Republican newcomer to politics, Maness has managed to transform his fringe candidacy into one the other campaigns are keeping their eyes on, largely due to support from national tea party groups. So far Maness has raised $1.25 million.
—As a requirement for running for Congress in the 6th District, former Gov. Edwin Edwards has filed his financial disclosure statement with the U.S. House showing his income in 2013 totaling $242,787. Within two years of being released from federal prison, the statement shows Edwards was earning money from his biography, a television show, speaking engagements, energy royalties and retirement benefits. He did not list any stocks, interest earned from savings accounts or liabilities owed to creditors. Edwards’ most substantial source of income was the government, with $95,939 earned last year from congressional and state retirement systems and Social Security. He was paid $79,500 by Left Field Productions for his canceled A&E reality series The Governor’s Wife and earned another $46,600 through speaking engagements. His biography, Edwin Edwards: Governor of Louisiana, brought in $17,792 in 2013. All candidate reports can be searched for and viewed online.
They said it: “These attacks against Mary stick in my throat like a hair in a biscuit.” —New Orleans political consultant James Carville in a fundraising letter on behalf of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu.
(Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.)
